Scarborough Fair
by EtincelleD'OR
Summary: Dragon & Anastasia meet again in a new life, but he is a young teacher & she is a pupil. How do you survive a set of circumstances that make falling in love with your soulmate so wrong that it could destroy everything you live for?
1. Are You Going To Scarborough Fair?

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

**Me: Okay, so here I go again writing pointless stories about minor characters that no one will read let alone review, but I had a really nice idea and so wanted to write it down. Again, the urge to write this spawned from feeling sorry for Dragon and Anastasia. (God knows why when they barely have speaking parts, I know it confuses me too. I think it's because as minor characters I as a writer can shape them more, whereas the main characters' personalities and histories are already made out, carving out a good original story for them is more difficult.) So this is how they meet again in their future lives. This has absolutely nothing to do with anything else I've written, it's a completely separate fic to Resurrected.**

_**This is the story of Oliver Pendragon (pronounced "pen-druh-gun', like you say "pentagon") a young teacher at the House of Night with the world on his shoulders, and Anastasie, a troubled fledgling with a heart of gold and the world against her. Are you going to Scarborough Fair? **_

**BACKGROUND (Otherwise the symbolism doesn't make much sense.)**

"**Scarborough Fair" is a very famous English song dating back to the Middle Ages, during which the seaside town of Scarborough was host to a huge 45-day trading event, starting on 15****th**** August. Merchants came to it from all areas of England, Norway, Denmark, the Baltic states and the Byzantine Empire. Scarborough Fair originated from a charter granted by King Henry III of England on 22 January 1253. The fair finally ended in 1788, but the folk song "Scarborough Fair" survives well into today, originally being sung by bards travelling from town to town. The song consists of a man and a woman singing to each other, giving to each other a series of impossible tasks to complete, if they do so, then they will take each other back. The refrain "Parsley sage rosemary and thyme", though nonsensical to modern listeners, is fraught with symbolism. **

**Parsley, used to this day as a digestive aid, was said to take away bitterness, and medieval doctors took this in a spiritual sense as well. **

**Sage has been known to symbolize strength for thousands of years. **

**Rosemary represents faithfulness, love and remembrance. **

**Thyme symbolizes courage, and at the time this song was written, knights would often wear images of thyme on their shields when they went to combat.**

**Each stage of this story starts with a verse of "Scarborough Fair". See if you can see the relevance of impossible tasks in the chapters. **

**If you haven't heard it, go onto YouTube and search for "Scarborough Fair" by Hayley Westenra, it is by far the most beautiful version.**

**So, enjoy people!**

* * *

_Are you going to Scarborough Fair?_

_Parsley sage, rosemary and thyme._

_Remember me to one who lives there,_

_He once was a true love of mine._

* * *

_23__rd__ June 2156_

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

Let me tell you how these things start.

I checked my watched again.

Nine forty-three.

The Madingley Road Park and Ride was horrendously busy, people passed in front of me in blurs, their laughs and smiles penetrating my ears. Mostly proud parents, grandparents, ridiculously distant relatives and jealous yet grinning friends appearing from the coach doors dressed as per a wedding or Royal Ascot. I sighed, the dry-cleaning bag containing my gown, hood and mortar board in my hand now starting to weigh down and cut into my palm. Some people stopped and looked at me as they passed, noting the sapphire blue markings on my face, children particularly, pointing and smiling, asking me if I had drawn them on with felt tip pen. Sometimes I wish I had.

It was busy, maybe I had missed them. No, I knew from plentiful experience that 'missing' my family was not something that was physically possible. Normally you would hear them before you could see them, in the past, it had sometimes been the perfect cue for jumping behind the next biggest object that would hide you, or for bracing yourself as several young children threw themselves at you and suffocated you. Given the general amount of asphyxiation in my family, it was surprising we weren't all choking with asthma. No, you didn't miss my siblings.

I was the eldest of nine children. Yes, you heard me correctly, nine. Apparently I had been a difficult child. Well, a difficult baby. My mother, who, when I was finally potty-trained was just about ready to throttle me, had declared there and then: Never again. And then, when I was thirteen, having given up on the thought of a little brother or sister, my mother got pregnant again. At the time I thought it was a little incidental. Now as I look back on it I think it was a little accidental. Sure enough, in nine months time I had a baby brother. Sure enough, in seven years time, I had six brothers and two sisters. At the time I couldn't bring myself to think about the reason for this mass production, and I still can't quite fathom it. Occasionally my father would give me a despairing look from across the dinner table, his eyes wide and wondering what on Earth he had got himself into. All I could do was shrug smugly. It had been his own doing.

A bunch like that certainly wouldn't have been anonymous, especially not at Madingley. James, the next oldest after me of course, was twelve, Chris was ten. Charlie nine, twins Daniel and Eric were seven, Alex was six, and yet another set of twins, Eleanor and Francesca were five. Nope, definitely unmissable. Not in Cambridge, where the youngest of the little kids was at least eighteen, most older. Nine fifty-eight. They were always late, but now this was getting ridiculous. I should be putting my gown on now.

Six long years had paid off. I wasn't a boffin, before you say it, or extremely dull. At least I hoped I wasn't. I worked bloody hard for that place, and yet every holiday when I went home again, to Scarborough that is, I spent most of my time trying to prove that I wasn't a snob with a rich dad. My father was a local GP, but when you split his salary between all eleven of us it doesn't stretch very far. My mother used to be a social worker, but clearly after the baby boom she didn't have the time, only just squeezing enough in for one particularly moody mare that my mother seemed to think she would one day get a decent foal out of. No one else in my family had ever been to Cambridge or Oxford, I knew my father wouldn't miss this for the world. Not even this modernised one we all walked in. He had wanted me to pursue a career in Medicine like him, it was only the sleepless nights, endless stress and high suicide rate that put me off, and so I had elected History as a less hazardous degree, with intercollated French.

I stared once again down Madingley Road, just barely seeing the tall building that was the Veterinary Medicine clinical site, peeping out from behind the trees. Cambridge was one of those places that never ever changed. You could walk down the street and it would be like walking down the same road in 2156, 2056, 1956, 1856, and every century before that. Just like Scarborough. The centre modern and heaving with the young, and then you went down some roads and there you were in a top hat and tails again. The House of Night in Scarborough seems to hold it back somewhat, people seem happy to keep everything traditional. I knew the vamps were. I liked the vampyres there, I had four happy years there, and I liked tradition, but sometimes the world had to move on.

I noticed that the coaches dropping people off here to board the P&R, the ones I was waiting for, had stopped coming. The round parking bays completely empty. Finally losing my patience, I slapped my hands on my knees and heaved myself off the bench I had been occupying, before walking through the doors towards the desk.

"Steve..." I began. Steve looked up. He knew all of the uni students by name, face, voice, footsteps, you name it.

"Yeah mate?" he said, looking very briefly back down at his computer screen. Again, more formal greetings were reserved for non-students, people who didn't crash in here every weekday morning demanding coffee.

"There any traffic news? My travelling circus is later than I can afford."

"No news of a travelling circus I'm afraid, but the motorway's shut so their chances of getting here before the ceremony are skinnier than Charlene's..."

"Charlene." I finished for him before he dug himself into an even bigger hole. Charlene, his on-off, anorexic, Liverpudlian girlfriend, who was, on the off chance, a med-student. "Mate, you've not gotta go there."

"Why?"

I grinned. "Well she's got needles and everything."

From his face, I could tell Steve probably knew. "Scalpels actually mate. I'm sure as Hell not doing tequilas again. And you'd better push off and all, I'll send your folks in the right direction, circus and all."

I thanked him and paced out of the building, snatching a ticket from the machine as I went, and perched myself back on that bench and waited.

I went on to that ceremony, mortar board and gown and all. It was all very civilised, the ceremony in the Senate House, entirely conducted in Latin. All I can remember thinking now was how Senate House would not open its doors for them once the ceremony had begun. I was fairly sure I was going to see them immediately outside the doors when I walked out into the fresh June air. I wouldn't even mind if Fran and Ells rugby-tackled me to the floor with hugs and called me Ollie, even when I had made it more than perfectly clear since the age of eleven that my name was Oliver, and _nothing _else. Still nothing. I bloody hate the was more clapping, cameras flashing in your face, an official photo, and while I was happy, I did rather feel like a horse at a polo match. I sighed and got a grip. It was traffic, not exactly a rare thing there, they would get here sometime. Meanwhile, I made myself busy chatting with my Peterhouse friends and their families, those that had seen me before if I could find them of course, being a vampyre didn't put me in the greatest of standings with some of them. The first comment was 'oh you're a vampyre', the next was always 'but you're so young to have graduated already'. And I always answered flatly. My vampyre-physiology was already catching up with me, making me appear twenty at most, as opposed to my twenty-six. I still got ID-ed when we went out into clubs and bars, much to the amusement of my friends. The fact that I was, shall we put it, lacking in stature, being a pathetic five foot five, had never aided that cause.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I excused myself and ducked around the nearest corner so that the Fellows didn't see me, and looked at the screen. It was my mother's mobile. Sighing, I held the phone to my ear. Even the phone call was late.

I _bloody_ hated the M1, and all the lorry drivers on it.

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

Let me tell you how these things start.

They start with me being bloody annoyed.

Hera, formerly dozing on my desk, jumped out of her skin like someone had mentioned the word 'vet', and shot out of the window as I slammed the door shut behind me. Clearly, she wasn't too keen for my company, and I could understand exactly why. I had only just unpacked and things were already going wrong.

Today's meeting had not gone at all as planned. If it was indeed possible for it to go well at all. It had taken quite a bit of effort to take myself there and a bloody strong gin and tonic before I could get my tongue around the words.

Never again. I'll never forget the way he looked at me. Like I was an incompetent child. I didn't know how old he was, I had barely been here long enough to know where the downstairs loos were, but he had a very English old-boy air to him, even though he looked not a day over thirty, if you closed your eyes and listened, you would hear a cantankerous, almost rude man of seventy. Normally he had a reassured look about him, a confident and cocky attitude, a raised eyebrow and a creased forehead, a hearty laugh and a suitably politically-incorrect retaliation on the tip of his tongue. He would slam his gin and tonic on the table, slap his hands on his knees and grumble about my calling him here yet again. And he did exactly that, when he knew his entire life was in peril. It surprised me, at the time I admit I wrestled with the desire to smack him around the face as hard as I could and scream at him to say something, a plausible come-back an excuse. What a fool he was. Normally the seat he was in was reserved for fledglings in trouble. Then he downed the drink.

"I don't know what you've got a bee in your bonnet about Yianna." He had grumbled into his glass, "I thought you were an intelligent woman."

"Not half as intelligent as you were when you got yourself into this." I said, standing, my fingers clasping the rim of the desk, watching him fiercely as he pulled a face as if the gin was bad.

He leant back in his chair and looked me like I was a piece of talking dirt. "What are you, above common decency?"

"Above ignorance, actually." I fumed, smoke could have been billowing from my ears, "What the Hell is wrong with you?"

"Bloody nothing!" he said, "What's wrong with you?"

"Don't you see how serious this is?"

"Quite frankly no." He said bluntly, refusing to look me in the eye.

"If you worked in a human school you'd have been struck off quicker than you can say 'child protection'!"

He swallowed another mouthful of drink. "I thought that was the point of working in a House of Night."

I sighed. "I understand why you're sour."

He held his hands out wide, his mouth wide. "Then why am I sitting here?"

"You know what it looks like." I lowered my voice, "How could you be so stupid?"

"How _dare _you accuse me of something like that!" he hissed.

"Others have. That is the point!"

"Is this what we get for trying to help kids these days? If we're not treating them like rocks then we're sexually abusing them! That girl needs someone, _someone _on this _pathetic _staff to hold her hand and pass her a tissue, and all anyone can do is pretend they can't see her!"

"Yes, but writing to her, hugging her?" I spat, "She's not your daughter!"

His voice was low and laced with poison. "Some people _do_ need that from time to time Yianna, even if _you_ don't."

"This has nothing to do with me."

"This has everything to do with you!" he shouted, his fists balled and his knuckles white, "_You're willing to take the word of Serena Jacobs and Declan White over mine for Nyx's sake_!"

My temper was flaring fast. "Don't you have any idea of the legal implications if this gets out?"

"Don't you mean the fine for police time-wasting?"

"If this is all so very innocent then show me the letters." I said, holding out my palm, even though I didn't expect him to have them on him.

He couldn't believe his ears. "No!" he yelled.

I rolled my eyes. "Oh well that says it all then doesn't it?"

He snorted. "Not even half!"

I calmed my voice for double effect and folded my arms. "Alright." I said, my skin boiling, "So if they can't clear your name why won't you show me?"

"Because I shouldn't have to!"

"You fool!" I hissed, "This could be the end of your career!"

I could see he was using most of his effort to stop his lip from shaking in anger, grinding his jaw and fighting the urge to capsize my desk. "Fine." He said, uncrossing his arms and getting up from his chair, "So be it."

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Handing in my resignation!" he said, as he left the room at a rate of knots, slamming the door so hard everything in the room jumped. "Effective immediately!"

The memory resounded ruthlessly in my head. I needed an aspirin. What was I going to do? Place an ad for a replacement I suppose. This sort of thing happened so rarely, and I don't believe him capable of that, I don't, but couldn't he see my hands were tied? The twenty-second century had been merciless on our traditional disregard for the rules, just when a little disregard was needed. I sat back in my chair.

Nyx, what have I permitted to happen?

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

Let me tell you how these things start.

My mother believed that since, according to the Bible, vampyres were not amongst the creatures created by God on the sixth day of Creation, they simply did not exist. Or, as she said, vampyres did not exist in Heaven, and anything that does not exist in Heaven alongside Him did not exist in the mind of any good Christian. Her reaction when I was Marked was minimal. No anger, no hatred, no disgust. I was simply gone. Vanished into nothingness. I ceased to exist. Watching her in that small time between seeing the Tracker and leaving for the House of Night was like watching someone mourn the death of a distant relative. It was even less than that, because you could not mourn the soul of something that did not exist. It was, according to the Elders, preferable to accept that the drinking of blood simply did not happen, drunk by creatures that did not exist, rather than accept that what they considered to be the worst of sins – the ingestion of blood, and even worse, deriving bodily pleasure from doing so - happened every day.

At the House of Night, all the way up north in Scarborough, when I arrived, and saw a castle in ruins, I thought I had gone mad at last. It was ruined though, and had been so for years, it was common knowledge it had been bombed in World War II. Was there a spell on it like there was on Hogwarts or something? The tracker informed me that it was no such thing and that the House of Night was situated in the old dungeons of the castle, cut in the rock below the ruins. Vampyres in dungeons. Not stereotypical at all really.

I thought I would be happy here, I honestly did. The lack of anyone harassing me felt so good I could have cried tears of joy, I didn't even care about not mixing with people, no one was trying to hurt me. Never again. In fact the concept of big groups of friends was alien to me, I simply wasn't used to it, and so I didn't even try. Or rather I didn't feel I ought to be trying. Why should I when I was so happy by myself? I was so blissfully happy, so stupidly happy. Until I became the weird girl who sits on her own. I wasn't dressed any differently to the other girls here. Jeans, t-shirt, trainers, sometimes a long cardigan over the top if it was cold, which, in Scarborough, it usually was. I didn't look any different to them. I couldn't – never even dared go near them. They made me shiver, how they looked at me. Like I was a horrible five year-old with braids.

One of my favourite books is called "My Sister's Keeper", by Jodi Picoult. Let me tell you why it's my favourite. Julia, the lawyer's childhood sweetheart, who once found herself in a similar predicament as me said wisely: "If you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them". That quote, albeit a depressing one, made that book my favourite. It struck a very silent, and, as a result, unseen truth.

I just didn't understand their lives. They would go out drinking, be it blood or wine, most nights, wearing eye-wateringly tight clothes and lots of make-up. The guys loved them. I couldn't understand. How was crawling around in the gutter intoxicated a good thing to do? How was bitching about people something I wanted to do? Why did they all fall into social groups, the chavs, the emos, the sex-crazed, the fashionistas. I didn't fall into any of those groups. So when it came to break-time I would be sitting on my own again, wishing I was invisible.

Back when I came here aged fifteen, I had aspirations, I was much stronger. I hated those girls. And those boys as well. I decided that I wasn't going to be friends with someone for the Hell of having friends, fake ones at that, who I wouldn't really like. It wouldn't be right for me and all I'd ever be was an actress. How I so regretted that now I was someone's verbal punchbag. As I went, someone threw a piece of rubbish at me, and I heard laughter from behind me as I ignored it.

"Hey Nasty, that's a good lick, where you going?"

'Nasty' was what they called me now. How they'd got from 'Anastasie' to 'Nasty' was anyone's guess. Again, I ignored, I knew who it was anyway, Nathan, a nasty little chav, and he wasn't worth the moonlight he stood under.

"Hey!" came the voice from behind again. Now I could hear footsteps running up behind me and I began to feel sick. A hand grabbed my shoulder and stopped me in my tracks, and pulled me around to face its owner. My back hit the wall and I think I stopped breathing.

"I'll tell you what else is a good lick Nasty."

He was laughing and jeering at me from under his baseball cap, trying to manhandle me. I pushed against the hand on my shoulder, before raising my foot and kicking as hard as I could where the Sun don't shine. He howled and bent over double, swearing loudly.

"You fucking bitch!" he screamed, reaching out for me as I ran. I could barely feel my legs anymore, and the rest of me was shaking. Oh Christ I was going to be sick...

I darted into the nearest loos I could find, throwing he door open and staggering to the floor in the closest cubicle as my stomach lurched violently, scraping my knees and throwing up into the toilet, my long blonde hair falling over my shoulders. As I tried to scrape it back out of the path of the vomit, I heard whispers in the background, of other girls who had been reapplying their lip-gloss and doing their hair. Finally the sick stopped coming, leaving me empty and shaking, pins and needles travelling up my legs. I leant against the side of the cubicle, and cried.


	2. Legend Has It

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

_17__th__ February 2157_

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

An age old story told that once there was a little girl trapped inside Scarborough Castle.

She was the illegitimate daughter of Ealdred, the Archbishop of York, and a common prostitute. Ealdred sent men to kill them after the girl's mother threatened to send correspondence between them concerning the girl to the King William (the Conqueror) when Ealdred went away to Normandy with him. Legend has it that when the guard had raised his spear to the child, the spear would not fall upon her. Unable to kill her and fearful that she was some kind of witch, Ealdred sent her to the dungeons of Scarborough Castle, in which the prisoners had contracted a deadly disease (probably a very early strain of the Bubonic Plague) and prayed that it would kill her. Whilst around her fully-grown men were dying and falling like flies, it is said that this little girl did not give so much as a sneeze throughout her short life down there, and every day would sing joyously as she skipped through the dark and damp passageways. The story goes that a terrible fire swept through the dungeons of the castle, through the damp dirty dungeons where there weren't two pieces of flammable material to rub together. It killed all the prisoners down there and even the little girl herself, but never did one flame reach so high as the entrance. Not a trace of anything down there was left behind, it was like the fire had purged the place. There were not even any bodies to retrieve. And still over one thousand years later she still walked the halls.

It would always be the same song she sang. Scarborough Fair. We had all heard her, I had even seen her once, I the usual sceptic, her little blonde pigtails bouncing around her shoulders as she skipped. She wasn't even transparent, but perfectly solid, a little girl that had wondered out of the eleventh century. And if ever any of us saw her, we would smell smoke.

There are many different versions of the story, depending on who you listen to, and even Thanatos herself had not been able to fully decipher the story. Only last year had she decided that she could only pursue one of her two occupations and left us in favour of the Council, with her going any explanation of the paranormal inside the House of Night.

The House was surrounded by myth and lore. For example, the exact location of the entrance was to humans a mystery, and, having formerly been a dungeon, it was heavily haunted. Of course most of the haunting stories were fuelled by fledglings' overactive imaginations, and so we had no real record of how many ghosts there were in the castle, but we knew there were at least seventeen, all with different stories attached. Like one, for instance, that took the form of a little girl, no older than seven or eight, who skipped down the corridors at night, laughing and singing.

I had lost count of the people that were giving me funny looks from a distance. Not that I blamed them, who in their right mind trudged across the Scarborough Beach in the middle of February and in the pouring rain?

Of course, the best location the Vampyre Council could think of for a House of Night in the entire British Isles, asides London, was plonked in the middle of a rock looking out to sea. And I have to say, it's got to be the ugliest House of Night yet. To look at, it is merely castle ruins upon which once stood a great fortress protecting Scarborough - and before you ask no, we didn't do a Harry Potter and cast a spell on it - after the Germans bombed it in World War Two there wasn't much left - the dungeons of said castle however were huge, and after a little renovation - I particularly liked what they had done with the torture rooms – it was a fully-functioning, light-free school which extended into just behind the keep and curtain wall. Still it was odd to be coming back here again. It's like revisiting a part of your life that is past and no longer feeling a part of it because you're not supposed to be there. I lived on Albert Road, a stone's throw from the beach and the main roads (Royal Albert Drive and Marine Drive) to Scarborough Castle, so I was never far away anyway. You could cut across the beach if the tide was out, and so instead of boarding in the House like the other fledglings, I had been walking this way ever since I was sixteen years old.

The rain pattered onto my coat as the tide came in on the North Bay, the waves lapping fiercely onto the beach not too far from my feet, and I felt the childish urge to jump into the spray, even if it was the middle of February. I thought better of it – I was supposed to be arriving tidily, but inwardly I smiled at the prospect of being able to walk this way every day in the summer months. As a fledgling I had often ridden it, left the horse with Demeter and walked the remaining distance, but I had soon discovered as predicted, that newly pregnant horses are not to be underestimated.

I crossed Marine Drive and onto the grassy grove that surrounded the castle. In the Middle Ages, servants and smugglers would use a grotto-like system of tunnels that extended down to the various moorings when the tide was in to bring goods up to the cellars. From the outside, the side entrance to these passages appeared to be a false door, indeed there were many of these situated around the lower levels of the castle, again, each had a story about it as to why it had been sealed. Some said it was symbolic to ward away leprosy – in churches there were 'leper's windows' small windows by which people who suffered from leprosy could attend church without spreading the disease to those inside. Such windows were sealed in most churches at the turn of the first millennium AD – some said it was taken from an ancient Egyptian tradition which involved creating false doors for spirits to come and go as they pleased. They had some very strange ideas in those times...

As I approached one such false door, I could see a figure waiting before me. I couldn't have missed her if a bomb had gone off in the opposite direction. She was a slim woman of Indian race, dressed impeccably, entirely in black, her long black hair pulled into a low ponytail. She was standing straight, her hands clasped in front of her, not swaying in the breeze.

"You must be Oliver Pendragon." She said, smiling lightly, "It's an honour to meet you."

I had never met High Priestess Yianna, nor had I heard much about her either, other than that she was extremely efficient and the House was thriving, but I was also weary enough that for some reason, not long after she had arrived, Spiridion, my old tutor (as we called them in Britain) and stalemate of the school had resigned. After all that was why I was here. I needed work, and this was the obvious place to get it. I was to be teaching Fencing, which made sense as it was my affinity, and I needed the money badly, however I couldn't help but feel it was six years at Cambridge wasted.

"Likewise." I said, shaking her hand.

She continued talking as we went inside, her voice and the sound of our footsteps echoing off the walls. "Ah nice weather for ducks." She said, "And you walked here in it."

"It's not far, actually it's nice to live so close."

"I'll bet, I need a train ticket to Birmingham every time I want to go home." She laughed, we stopped outside the door to what I knew as Spiridion's tutor room, "Anyway, as you were a fledgling here not long ago obviously the tour isn't necessary and neither are the introductions to the staff. I daresay you'll know them far better than I, but I would like to introduce you to your tutor group, if I may? They're all excited to meet you."

I nodded. "Absolutely."

She pressed down on the door handle and entered. Immediately I heard the shuffling of bodies as the group of fledglings got to their feet, as was expected when professors entered the room.

"Morning." She said, "Please be seated." They sat, and we took centre stage, "I would like to introduce you to Professor Oliver Pendragon, who will be taking over from Professor Spiridion. He's fresh out of Cambridge this year, and took their fencing team on to win nationals. He's the current European Foilist Champion and represented Team GBR at the 2148 Olympics aged just nineteen." The Vampyre Olympics, she meant. I wasn't allowed to compete against humans for obvious reasons. A couple of Crepusculars smiled and nodded.

Once again I reminded myself how the American Houses of Night had buggered up the form system. Let me tell you how it really works in the UK. The Forms consist of Lower Fourth, Upper Fourth, Fifth Form, Lower Sixth, and Upper Sixth. Lower Fourth was the year-group of 13-14 year olds, Upper Fourth the 14-15 year olds, Fifth the 15-16s, Lower Sixth the 16-17s, and Upper Sixth the 17-18s. That was the way the human public schools did it. This system was largely, shall we say, altered, by the Americans and somehow ended up in their Houses of Night. Scarborough abided to tradition and kept the original forms as did the other European Houses, which were Primary Form or Firsts, Secondary Form or Seconds, Tertiary Form or Thirds, the final year being called Crepusculars (which means 'most active at twilight', which the last year were, being very nearly Changed and able to withstand weak sunlight at times of dawn and dusk). Crepusculars were often dubbed 'creps' after 'crêpes', the French for pancakes, or 'the craps', if people were particularly annoyed with them.

"Now I want you to take it in turns to introduce yourselves, names, Forms, interesting facts, etcetera." Yianna looked around the group, and pointed to a dark-haired girl at the front. "Let's start with you Sarah."

They went around the room giving their names, Forms, affinities, favourite foods and movies they hated. I smiled politely to each one and tried to make a note of the names, the other information was going in one ear and out the other and I was pretty sure I would be asking most of them for names later anyway.

I heard a bell ring in the distance, and suddenly all of them were on tenterhooks. "Alright everyone you can go." Said Yianna, holding the door open for them. Once they had filed out, Yianna closed the door again.

She gave a friendly, apologetic look. "Sorry, everything's cut short at the moment. We're all up in the air over the Seminar."

I immediately felt a little sorry for Yianna. Every five years the Vampyre Council would hold a symposium on all things involving vampyres, the news, what was happening in the worlds, developments scientific and political, etc... This year it was Thanatos' turn to organise it, and of course, she had chosen Scarborough to be the hosts, naturally. All of the Vampyre Council would be there, as well as most important vampyre-figures throughout the world, the Prime Minister, possibly the President of the United States would attend, every House of Night in the world would have a representative, some Houses even brought a selection of their brightest Crepusculars to sit in. Being the chosen hosts was considered to be both an honour and a pain in the arse. Yianna would be running on sheer determination alone, let's just say coffee wasn't going to be enough.

"When is it?" I asked.

"Ah, not until July." She said, "But you know how long these things take. We've only just managed to confirm the speakers for heaven's sake, Lord knows how we'll manage this." She smiled, "Will you attend?"

"I can attend the ones during the night hours." I answered, "But I really can't stay past six am Yianna, I have eight younger siblings, all of whom are prepubescent by the way."

She nodded. "I understand, that is more important."

I jerked my head towards the door. "They seem like an okay bunch." I said, taking a seat on the sofa.

"They're not too bad. Although..." She said seriously, her eyes straight and to the point. "I do have to tell you about Anastasie." Anastasie, a quiet girl in Thirds with long blonde hair and blue eyes, I remembered. Nothing out of the ordinary about her.

"She didn't look out of sorts."

Yianna walked over to the opposite sofa and sat down. "She's a bit of an oddball, not easy to deal with. In her reference her previous school described her as... I believe the exact words were 'better off in a special institution'."

"Does she have mental problems?"

"She was very badly bullied before she came here." Yianna gave me a knowing look, "Her mother's a Jehovah's Witness."

"Oh Christ..." I spat, rolling my eyes in a combination of pity and disbelief. Yianna need not say any more. There were some pretty bad faiths to come from if you were newly Marked, the Jehovah's Witnesses one was just about the worst you could possibly imagine. Blood transfusion in the direst of medical emergencies was considered an unforgivable sin worthy if excommunication, those that survived were shunned, Nyx only knew what they thought of vampyres, blood-drinking and all that went with it. Poor kid...

Yianna continued. "Her mother is a recluse, and her father's nowhere to be heard of. She's silent as the grave, we've had trouble getting her to eat."

I blinked. "Should she even be in school?"

Yianna frowned. "Probably not. She avoids any situation which involves interaction with other fledglings. Staff can hold perfectly normal conversations with her, her marks are good. But the moment she walks into that corridor, it's like she's content to live in her own little world without anyone but herself."

I raised my eyebrows. "Is she?"

Yianna shrugged and shook her head. "She won't talk to us. The only one she would tell was Spiridion, and she hasn't taken his leaving too well. She had some sessions with a psychiatrist when she started here, which proved to be fruitless."

"Poor kid."

"She often won't turn up for meals, or the fitness sessions. She needs to be monitored closely, as far as her health is concerned. She goes through phases of not eating, and she doesn't eat much anyway. We've never been able to get her to attend a fitness class, the others and I have given up at trying to make her." Yianna looked like she was dealing easily with a nasty truth, "I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't survive."

"I'll keep an eye on her." I said, "Have we tried taking food to her room maybe?"

"She won't eat it."

"Blood?"

"Won't touch it." Yianna replied, "She eats and drinks an absolute minimum, and unlike the other girls here it's not about vanity. The girl is thinner than a rake."

I couldn't quite believe my ears. This troubled girl was being offloaded onto me, fine, I can deal with that, but am I just supposed to watch her wallow in misery? "Are you telling me there's absolutely nothing we can do?" I asked, my voice almost ridiculing her. I would have to be careful, I didn't want to be hired and fired on the same day. "There's got to be something."

Yianna's facial expression gave the impression that she was thinking 'well tough titties'. "Sadly not." She said, "We can't force her to eat. One we're not legally 'obliged' to do that and two we can't hold her down force her mouth open and pour it down her throat."

I nodded. "I see."

"Now come on..." said Yianna, getting to her feet, "Can I get you a cup of tea, coffee?"

* * *

_Spiridion_

* * *

Oh bloody Hell.

What is this?

Is this some sort of joke?

Who the devil asks a vampyre to be a juror on a human court case?

This Government I tell you, we might as well jump into the Channel and have done with.

The letters, in what the Government perceived to be a suitable font shade for their legal documents – pink, big and staring spelled out 'Jury Summons'. My name had been randomly selected from the electoral register, and I had to attend Hull Crown Court – oh good God not Hull... – on 13th March. And I will have to pay a fine of up to one-thousand pounds if I don't reply. Ah Hell.

I took a bite of my toast and marmalade and threw the letter onto the table and picked up the Daily Telegraph instead. 'CABINET MINISTERS IN ROW OVER EUGENICS PROBE ' In my experience, all people want to read about in the morning is misery and despair. It was nice to know that vampyres kept the media in business.

Hull eh? Ugly place. Aesthetically as pleasing as the back end of a bus and just as desirable. It truly was a miserable place to have to spend the duration of a trial. How long would the trial be? I had a friend in Hull who works in magistrates, Christ I think he might even be a judge now. I watched over his lad when he was Marked a couple of decades back. I'll give him a ring and see if I can't get my arse out of this. It was definitely worth a shot. Truth be told I didn't want to be anywhere near Yorkshire when I had only just settled back into London. I had been a London lad before I was Marked, I was at Eton, in Fifth Form when William Pitt the Elder was a snivelling Lower Fourth. Such a little drip, so easy to push around! Of course we didn't know one day he'd become Prime Minister...

Of course there are those whose arses one is allowed to kick. Then again there are those whose arses are beyond physical kicking-range. I quite honestly never thought I'd miss Thanatos this much. She and I had not been particularly close, granted, but I liked her so much more than this new woman. At least Thanatos could find rules she didn't like.

I glanced back over at the Jury Summons, and suddenly I had a thought. Reaching over for my address book and the phone, I flicked the pages open and tapped the number in. It rang a few times.

Yianna wouldn't know what hit her.

"Ah Jack! It's Spiridion, how are you old chap? Yes, good, good, thank you. Now listen, Jack, I was wondering if you could do me a favour?"

* * *

_20__th__ February 2157_

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

Evenings were even earlier now than they were when I was attending the house as a pupil. I didn't mind of course, it was actually quite nice to be out and about before the other vamps were. Yianna had been really good about organising my schedule so that I wouldn't have any early lessons (some lessons which required small amounts of daylight, such as Equestrian Studies because horses were diurnal, took place either right before the fledglings turned in for the daylight hours, or bright and early before breakfast. Fencing wasn't one of these, granted, but sometimes, as they were a physical activity and people often wanted to shower afterwards, they had to either be at the end of the school night, or early in the evening) but I still had to be there for registration, which was at half seven. It had worked well for the past two days anyway.

I had been to pick up my travelling circus from school at three, all except James, who was in high school and came home on the bus at four. James was a godsend, he really was. Now he was old enough, I could leave the others with him without getting into trouble with the law, he helped me wash, dry, iron, cook, clean, and still found time to have a life on the side. Good kid, far better at balancing life than I was. I was lucky they all got along so well, if mutiny broke out at night when I wasn't there... Having said it was perfectly possible that mutiny did break out every night, they were just good at cleaning up after themselves. Just before I left I had put the horse in and fed her, had a quick muck-out in the field and I seriously hoped I didn't smell too badly of it. The tide was out now, the sun setting over the water horizon. I was nearly there and with fifteen minutes to spare. Amongst the sea-gulls and waves, I could hear the thud of horse's hooves on sand.

"Hello there new boy! Haven't seen you out this way for a while!"

I smiled. Demeter, the Scarborough Horse Mistress cantered up beside me on a great big bay thoroughbred kind of a thing and dropped to a walk. I immediately mentally ticked her off. No hat. I suppose she couldn't set a bad example to others if there was no one else around. She had short-ish dark-chestnut hair scraped back into a ponytail, scraggly stray bits of frizz flying around her eyes and tanned skin, suggestive of how much time she spent outside. She was wrapped up from the wind in a thick brown Toggi coat and a fleece scarf pulled down from where it had been wrapped up around her mouth. She looked surprisingly normal for a vampyre, her cheeks were rosy from the wind, her hair was lightly greasy, her dimples proof of how much she loved her job. When you looked at her, you might have thought she was a human who had actually drawn the Mark on. No glamour here. No make-up, just simply what I could only describe as 'horsey'. At least I knew one thing. I couldn't possibly smell worse than her.

"Evening Demeter."

"Well look at you eh? All grown up."

I knew it was a joke. Demeter was, much to my dismay and always had been much taller than me. "If your legs get any longer you'll need roller-skates to ride those horses of yours." Looking at the horse, that was much taller than me as well. "And what's this? Are you trying to make it in the cart-pulling business or is that the only thing big enough to carry your ego without collapsing?"

"Now I see why you got into Cambridge." She said, "It's a bit odd actually. After everyone leaves here we never see them again."

"Yes they run for the hills."

"Good riddance." She wiped something from her eye with a gloved hand, "The trouble some give me. I actually haven't got enough dirty stables for the number of detentions I give."

I laughed lightly. Whilst Demeter was not frightening to a good student, she was terrifying to a bad one, and one small mistake could put her in a mood for the rest of the day. Having been brought up around horses she had never seemed to mind me, only when she caught me 'taking shortcuts', as she liked to call it, doing harmless things that everybody does but shouldn't, because she was trying to teach them the proper way, like a driver knowing that indicating at roundabouts isn't a matter of life or death, usually, but learners have to do it anyway, to pass their tests.

"How've you been?" I asked, giving the horse a hearty pat on the neck as we walked.

"Not too bad." She said, "I'm actually doing better than some of the others, everyone's rushing around preparing for this damn lecture day, I feel quite lucky that I'm away from it all where I am. You?"

"I don't get away from it anywhere Dem." I said, putting emphasis on 'anywhere'.

"How's that mare of yours?"

"It's due to foal in July. Fortunately no problems so far."

"And how's your travelling circus?"

"Well, too well, well enough to be shrieking and shouting when I'm trying to sleep."

"I've got some human girls back at the yard, some working-pupils of mine. They'd be happy to babysit if you ever wanted to get away."

"That's kind of you but this is something I want to do myself." He said, "I can manage. I haven't got long with them, I mean soon they'll be off to college, and university, then they'll have lives of their own, and before you know it..." I paused, "I'll be attending their funerals."

Demeter's face fell. "Well aren't you the optimist."

That was the first time I admitted that fear to anyone. I would live for centuries, they had only a short time on this planet to make their ways, do what they want to do. I would blink and they would be gone. I wanted to be with them for as long as I could be, I wanted to make their lives the best they could be. I would have time to do other things when they were grown up; this was a tiny sliver of my life to give up for them.

"I just want to look after them myself, while I still can." He said.

She rolled her eyes. "Ah Oliver, you never change. A mental age of thirty and an emotional age of three."

"Ah Demeter, your brain is so connected up to your horses' brains that it may actually have shrunk to the size and intellectual capacity of, well, a horse's brain."

"Touché."

I paused to listen to the sea again, taking a breath of the fresh salty air. "So what do you think of Yianna then?" I asked her. I was keen for some inside scoop and Demeter would always be the one to know it.

She tightened her lips in a manner that read 'I should really be keeping my mouth shut, but I'm not gonna'. "To tell you the truth..." she began. Demeter always told it like it was, "No one is really sure what to think of her." She said, I had thought as much, "She is really nice, I grant you, but such a stickler for the rules. She's happy but only if we follow everything to the book. Nowadays with all this legal jargon I can understand why, but it wrecks the atmosphere of the school. The kids seem to like her, in fact she doesn't seem to have an angry side, just a disappointed one. I don't know." She shortened her reins marginally, "Maybe I'm being critical. We shouldn't expect her to be Thanatos. She has some big shoes to fill and maybe we're feeling the loose areas."

"Maybe."

"Nevertheless, I can get on with her. She's not half bad for a Brummy girl actually. She's... _**oh holy Jesus Christ!**_" Demeter's voice had risen to a terrified shriek.

"Well I doubt that." I said, trying to be witty, but an instant fear poured through my veins. What was it?

"Oliver look up there!" she pointed frantically and standing up in the saddle. She was pointing to the top edge of the castle keep, the old main access point, on top of the wall, a cliffy drop of God knows how many feet. Standing all the way up there, right on the very edge, was a figure, one that even with my eyesight I couldn't see that well. My face paled and my blood ran cold. It was as much as I could to do force out the words:

"Holy shit she's going to jump..."


	3. Defying Gravity

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

**Me: Here's another! Thank you to what a mongoose for the review :D**

**

* * *

**

_Tell her to make me a cambric shirt, _

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, _

_Without no seam nor fine needlework, _

_And then she'll be a true love of mine._

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

'_Arriving at Hull Paragon.'_

I would heavily agree with the fact that it could sometimes be considered strange to take comfort in dingy buildings, puddly pavements and thick grey exhaust fumes. Now I never said that I liked them, indeed there were many more imaginative ways of acquiring lung cancer, but there was definitely something about the buzz of city-life that appealed to me in some God-forsaken way. Home is where the Chippy is as my father always said, and even the sight of the horrible grey slabs of concrete that constituted Hull seemed to mimic the smell of deep-fat frying. I had been pondering this for a good half hour before the train gradually pulled to a halt inside Hull Paragon Station, and I was beginning to wonder whether or not my time living in possibly the quietest and possibly most retarded town in Britain had had a negative impact on me. Surely not. In the past, at this point, I would have expected to hear the brakes squealed against the wheels of the carriages, but alas no, in this day and age the technology had become so advanced that the trains no longer needed to touch the tracks in order to run. It was an idea thought up by someone in Japan I think, and whilst it was nonetheless ingenious, most of us that regularly fell asleep on the train needed those tiny sounds to jolt us back into the land of the living at each stop. I really, really didn't want to open my eyes and wake myself up to the world again. I could hear whistles blowing and male voices shouting. Already people were gathering outside on the edge, fighting and clambering for a place near the door.

I slung my bag over my shoulder and jumped into the carriage isle, the glass in the windows blocking out the bustle outside, making my way towards the sleek fibreglass doors. I looked straight ahead of me. Even though the technology the trains ran on had advanced, the state that they were kept in had not, everywhere I would turn if I didn't know better was covered in old pieces of chewing gum and the former contents of people's noses. An odd thought crossed my mind – I had actually managed to find a dirtier train than the ones back in Brummy, and that my friends, was a rarity. The doors opened. I reckoned that if I launched myself at the mob of people now, they would probably catch me and pop me down like something from the West End. Luckily for me, being a vampyre meant the general public weren't in too much of a rush to get in your way, and the crowd seemed to part before me. As my heel hit the platform, I was immediately hit by the stench of fumes, and I was nowhere near a road. I wrinkled my nose in disgust. When I lived in Birmingham I used the train every day, and never smelled anything. Maybe living in the middle of nowhere had sweetened my nose. I remembered arriving there and not being able to smell anything except cedar wood and salt for weeks. However you put it, smelly or no, it was good to be back in my element again.

As I walked and dodged through the oncoming mass of people trying to make it to the platforms, I pulled a letter out of my bag and unfolded it, hoping that it would bear some clues as to where I was going. That pink writing jumped off the page at me again. I remember when I received this I sat in shock for a few moments before reading it again. Why would they want a vampyre on a human jury? It was far too farfetched, and I smelled a rat. Yes we were on the electoral register – in theory. I didn't know how much our votes counted for but I seriously doubted the number was an integer. Humans would sooner ask dogs to participate in their legal proceedings. My spine couldn't help but tingle at the questions. Was I walking into a trap? Surely not. It was times like these that I regretted not having a permanent warrior by my side. These were rare occurrences. I did not need a man by my side to look after me, I would do that myself, thank you very much. I'm perfectly capable, I'm independent, I need no one to protect me from the world. As I walked I passed a group of, twenty odd, young men, clad all in hoodies and baseball caps. I could see the bling through my eyelids it was so damn bright. Their laces trailing behind their cheap converse, these were a gang that in normal circumstances a woman would immediately look away from and hurry past. I didn't have to, I could glare, I could look them in the eyes. I could feel their stares burning into my Mark, nudging each other as I walked past. It was them that backed away from me.

Oh yes, centuries of exclusion and now they wanted us sitting in on their legal proceedings? Mm, methinks not.

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

The wind in my face felt reassuring and caressing, like it was urging me on. It was the perfect time for this, dusk, all the vamps tucked up in their beds. I didn't have long now though, time was getting on. Earth really was beautiful when you looked at it from up here. Sea, sand, setting Sun and sea-gulls, the sound of the waves lapping far away, the long grasses covering the edges of the castle ruins rustling in the breeze, the smell beautifully fresh and untainted. This was how the world should be. It wasn't its fault that it was filled with cruel, egoistic people. So I tried not to hate the world, just the people in it. It was so thrilling to stand up here. Perfect control, you alone controlling whether or not you live or die. Control I had always yearned for. Right now I couldn't give a damn what anyone else thought, did, said, it was just me in my own little bubble on top of the world, the only way I knew how.

Spiridion was gone. And he wasn't coming back. His explanation had been short-lived and badly explained, but painful nonetheless. The only person I ever trusted, who I could talk to, gone. All I had left were the letters he wrote me. Hm. That had been the point though hadn't it? That when he was gone I could read those letters and listen to his reassurances again and again, so they didn't have to be committed to just memory. I missed him awfully. This hellhole didn't even have a light at the end of the tunnel. I hated it so much. I had become the kind of person that I myself didn't like, quiet, unsociable, the weird girl. I'd do anything to get away from it all now. Sometimes I just wished I could change schools, go to another House of Night, where no one knew me, where I could reinvent myself how I liked, I could be popular and have friends, maybe even a boyfriend, I could at least have a shot at being normal. At sixteen, I wasn't ready to do that yet, now, when I felt I was, I realised I was trapped without a way out. I didn't want to spend anymore of my life crying for _God's _sake! Sometimes I would float through life on an automatic pilot, not because I wanted to, but that was how I could reduce how much it hurt to let everything in. As soon as I began to think about myself, my failings, what I was, who I was, I couldn't hold back the tears. It could happen at any time, even when I was in the middle of a lesson or awake in the middle of the daylight hours. I could feel the tears coming now just by thinking about it.

I had been preparing mentally for a long time now. I had had to do most of the learning myself, only fuelling the others to hound me over a new affliction. It was the ultimate test for myself.

The wind brought voices to my ears from down below. It was such a long way... I saw Demeter on one of her horses, galloping towards me at a rate of knots. It didn't matter, only a horse with wings would get to where I was, and even then, she wouldn't get here in time. There was another figure on the ground, one I recognised as the new Fencing Master. His words were muffled and distorted by the time they reached me. Again, it didn't matter. Maybe they would see, and then maybe they would understand. Maybe.

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

My third day, and already one of my tutees was trying to commit suicide.

I kicked myself again and again as Demeter and I ran (I ran, she galloped) towards the bottom of the keep and wall, shouting as loudly as we could. The sound that came out of my throat seemed never-ending, the source of energy in my legs suddenly infinite.

Her long blonde hair blew out behind her – I was pretty sure the gust of wind in her face was the only thing keeping her up there – she was standing with her feet at shoulder width, her hands slightly away from her sides, the wind rustling through her clothes making them ripple like those waves on the sea. It was that girl Yianna warned me about, what was her name...? Anastasie. Clearly, Yianna hadn't been kidding when she said the girl was troubled.

Demeter was way ahead of me on her horse, one hand at the reins, the other hand holding her phone to her ear. I could hear her shouting down the phone at who I could only presume was the paramedics. Yianna had left for Hull earlier for Jury Service.

I was close enough to see her in more detail now. "Anastasie!" I yelled as loud as my lungs would allow, and even then I didn't know if she could hear me, "Stop!" No reaction. "Anastasie don't do this!" I shouted again. Oh good God if she moved a muscle now she would plummet...

She looked at me, I was sure, a downward tilt of her eyes towards me, before leaning forward.

She fell...

* * *

_Spiridion_

* * *

Well, if you were going to agree to show at this kind of thing, you could at least have the decency to be punctual.

God Hull was ugly. There was no such thing as a 'wish you were here' postcard from Hull, and if there was, it would be so ugly that if you stuck it across the Playboy cover-girl's face and mass produced it, let's say the Playboy bank vault would have to be downsized to a Startsavers account. A child's Startsavers account with Angelina Ballerina on the passbook.

I started looking at the people around me too. Christ they weren't much prettier either! Ten plain humans, standing on the wall, ten plain humans, standing on the wall, and if one plain human, should accidentally fall... Someone really should rename that 'Ten Red Bottles'...

I frowned at them every time one looked at me. Why on Earth should I smile at someone who turns their bloody nose up? Often I had to remind myself of why I was here.

You could hear her heels clacking five miles away. Well, it was about time. She looked around the other jurors, before her eyes set on me. Oh, if only looks could kill! I was half tempted to call her 'Her Holiness' as she strode over to me on a mission, but decided against it, maybe later. She was so angry it was funny, her eyes were set in this awkward little stare and her fists were clenched.

"I know you had something to do with this!" she hissed, waving the Summons in front of my face.

I folded my arms and my face remained straight. "I'm quite sure I have no idea what you're talking about."

She had an aneurysm. "Do you think this is funny?" she fumed, "Is this your idea of a joke?"

Around us, people began to look around them like they felt an earthquake rumble. One started pointing at a bare patch of carpet and shrieked that there was a spider, one crawled up into a corner and shouted about the walls coming in. Most just stood still, their eyes blank, and screamed. It lasted no longer than the silence between our words.

If I told her that yes it was my idea of a joke there may actually be bloodshed. "Magistrates, never make mistakes about Jury Service, unless it is for tax purposes." I told her, "Like it or not, you're summoned to Jury Service. You have to attend. Full stop." I looked her in the eye, "That's the rules." I said, "It's the law."

"This has gone way too far." She muttered, so that I could hear it.

"And it's far from over." I said. It was far from over. Like it or not, she would have her comeuppance.

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

The speed at which it happened made me feel sick. I didn't know what I was waiting for... A gust of wind to blow her onto the course of some thick bracken or something ridiculous like that, maybe I thought I would be seeing everything in slow-motion. There was no slow-mo, no time to think or react, no mercy, it just happened. Gravity defines no limit as to how fast a person can fall, only how fast they can accelerate. That's ten metres per second, per second. Physics told me she couldn't have been falling that fast, but it was fast enough.

Her body hurled through the air, twisting and turning like a ragdoll in a gale, her limbs looked fluid like her hair did. I didn't want to think about what would happen on impact. Her bones would smash into smithereens as they hit the rock, her skull would crack apart and her blood vessels would rip apart, her blood would spill inside her brain with nowhere to go, her limbs would be bent at horrible angles, her lungs would be filled with blood and she wouldn't be able to breathe. If she was lucky, the blow to the skull would kill her outright, and she wouldn't have to suffer. I didn't have time to wonder why I was so hell-bent on this girl having a good death than I was about keeping her alive.

My stomach turned as my ears heard a sickening crack. _God why wasn't I fast enough? _Demeter was only just getting there, jumping from her horse and sprinting full pelt, clambering over rocks, the flat soles of her riding boots slipping against the smooth surfaces. I followed her, my brain struggling to keep up. I still couldn't quite believe that she had done it. How could we have been so blind? All of us! How can you see someone in fairly close proximity every day and not notice that they were so sad that they didn't want to live anymore? I felt sicker –we had let this happen. If we had got her some help sooner, instead of dilly-dallying around waiting for something to happen. For Nyx's sake it didn't take a genius to see the girl was unhappy! It was failings like this that almost made me want to literally light a fire under the arses of anyone who had ever made life miserable for her.

The sight before us wasn't as disgusting as I had thought it was going to be. I didn't understand why, yes her arm and one leg were snapped at nasty angles, blood dripped from her ear, but she was alive. How the _Hell _could she be alive? It was a _one hundred foot bloody drop_! There was no way that anyone, human or vampyre could survive a fall like that! Demeter threw her one riding glove to the side and held her fingers over the girl's pulse, and tested the reflexes in her eyes. A minimal response. Her head was knocked, yes, but there was no obvious indentation from impact. If she had fallen all that way, Physics had it, as the head was the heaviest part of the body, it should have been one of the first things to hit the ground. And it wasn't like she hit a soft surface!

As I watched Demeter pull an astonished face I could tell she was making the same observations as I was.

"Looks like we've got a Wonder Woman." She said.

"No kidding." I replied.

My initial anger was only fuelled by my current confusion. I didn't know how and I had even less clue as to why. All I knew was that that girl was extremely, extremely lucky.

* * *

**R&R!**


	4. Morons are morons

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

**Me: Morons are morons.**

* * *

_Lucy_

* * *

It's not difficult to get depressed in a place like this. I mean sure you're there to help people, in whatever capacity that might be, and there's such an upside when you can actually do that, it reminds you why you wanted to do this job in the first place. But...

In this place, almost all the kids here have come here to die.

It shouldn't just be hushed up as a fact of life that kids die here. Vampyre Medicine has come on so much in the last hundred years or so it's amazing, we can detect some Change Rejections long enough before they happen to prevent them. Some, we can't. It makes me sad that with fledglings, it was completely out of their control. It wasn't their fault they were Marked or that they rejected the Change, so when I look at people being wheeled in here on trolleys and doctors buzzing around like flies to a carcass it's not just a fact of life, it's as tragic as falling into deep water when you can't swim or being hit by a drink-driver. Dr. Cilian said it had nothing to do with how or why, it was simply a fact of life that life had to end at some point, be it sooner or later.

I was just starting nurse training with Dr. Cilian when they rolled yet another trolley in. Seven thirty in the evening, my college folders out in front of me, pulled together and puffy-eyed, the pen in my hand writing notes when I dared to break away from his eye-contact, despite the fact I was pretty sure my knickers were on backwards. I hadn't been very coherent getting up this evening and I was surprised I had managed to pull my trainee-nurse's uniform on properly. Now for human nurses, the uniform was blue. For veterinary nurses, it was usually green, but sometimes blue. For vampyre nurses, the uniform was identical to that of a normal nurse, but it was black. I was wearing some strange concoction that identified me as a trainee nurse, it was very finely striped black and white, which quite frankly made me feel like Sweeney Todd, and when I walked down the street normal folks thought I was an escaped inmate from the nearest prison. Still, rules are rules, and so Sweeney Todd I was.

Anaesthesia of vampyre fledglings and pre- and post-operative care was today's topic. He was sitting across the consulting room desk from me, just talking and talking and talking. At least I think that was what he was talking about, I'm not really sure... It was amazing being here, you could walk down a hall and hear dialects from all corners of the globe. For example, Catríona, or just Ríona for short, the Music Mistress, was a tiny Irish girl with an amazing knack for the fiddle, and so much energy it was surprising she didn't just make herself catch on fire with it all, she was like a little blonde firecracker with a deep southern Irish accent as musical as her violin. And then there was Ellen, the mate of Literature Master Aleron Ainscombe, who was the House's Farm Manager. Yes, this gets better, we have a farm. When we first introduce fledglings to blood, we use cattle-blood as opposed to human's, as early on in the Change their stomachs don't immediately take to human blood, generally if they have too much they chuck it all back up again. Gradually, as they get older, we phase out the cattle blood and phase the human blood in. They don't know this of course and most of them probably never will, but we had the farm for that reason. It also provides us with milk and beef. Ellen, bless her, could be summed up completely in three words: 'Herefordshire farmer's daughter'. I swear I couldn't understand a word she said. When she spoke, it was like something out of a period drama, I had no idea some people actually talked like that until I met Ellen. She wasn't here for most of the time, as she was diurnal and worked the farm in the daytime, and came back to the House for meals and to sleep during the night, but if I had had lessons with her I wouldn't have learned jack, except how to speak farmer I suppose. Never had there been a stranger pairing, he was the proverbial city bookworm, a well-spoken academic, she was the girl who spent all day in overalls, covered in cow muck. She barely scraped GCSEs but knew farming like the back of her hand. From day one they were taken with each other and slowly fell in love. It was a lovely story actually, I was surprised he didn't turn it into a novel or something. Now, back on track, Dr. Cilian was Italian, qualified in Rome before coming here, and every word he said was actually verbal sex. I wasn't paying much attention. In fact, I think I was staring at his abs again, not that there was a heck of a lot to see through his shirt and pullover and labcoat but it leaves much to the imagination. He's gorgeous, olive skin, dark hair, tall and slim, and he has these smouldering eyes that just make you wanna squeal.

Oh Nyx, he was looking at me, actually, down at me, and I was still staring at his jumper. I looked up at him from beneath my fringe.

"Was there something on my sweater Lucy?" he asked me sternly.

"Erm... I thought I saw a stain?"

Major reality check Lucy. He is a super sexy doctor and Nyx knows how many times your age, and you are a dumpy blonde with enough freckles to substitute a sunspot. Not to mention you're a nurse, and a really bad one at that! Get a grip Lucy you're not even a nurse... Oh crap he's still staring at me like he going to kill me...

"Emergency!"

With a swish of his coat, he was gone. Ah. Thank you Nyx. Wait why am I still sitting here?

I launched myself into the prep room with fire coming out of my arse. Dr. Cilian was already at the trolley-side of a fledgling, asking questions, drawing up drugs. Not another Change Rejection, how many more kids wanted to die during my training? I took a look at her from a distance, as I wasn't supposed to get in the doctors' way. Ah, she was that girl who everyone thought was a bit of a weirdo. She was a seriously odd, tell the truth, a complete loner, the others constantly took the piss out of her. It was the oddest Change Rejection I had ever seen, we don't normally get broken legs...

On the end of the firing line of Dr. Cilian's questions was an adult vampyre, ah of course I know him, he was in final year when I was in Firsts, oh he's big into fencing, what's his name...? Oliver Pendragon. He must be the new Fencing Master then. I wondered who they'd get to replace Spiridion. Oliver looked pale, but otherwise alright as he reeled off answers.

"You aren't going to believe this." He said to Dr. C, "But she just jumped off the keep."

Dr. Cilian raised one of those lovely eyebrows. "She jumped off the keep?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure she didn't fall?"

He scoffed a little bit. "Oh she fell but she wanted to."

"You saw it?"

"I was walking across the beach with Demeter and we saw her at the top of the keep, we screamed at the top of our lungs at her but I don't think she could hear us."

Dr. Cilian creased his brow as he glanced at the girl again, like something didn't make sense. "Are you her tutor?"

"Yes."

"Alright." He said, "We'll see what we can do. Lucy!" he snapped, I darted to his side, "Get get me a 1.5 22 gage needle and a sanguireous IV."

I nearly tripped over my own trainers as I sprinted to the pharmacy. 1.5 22 gage 1.5 22 gage... I grabbed two for good measure and yanked a sanguireous IV off the shelf. That my friends, is correct terminology for 'blood IV'. Nowadays they treat it so the protein chains and antigens on the red blood cells disintegrate, everything that makes blood personal to one individual goes, whilst keeping the good nutritional bits, it's basically so that people don't have orgies in hospital, in fact humans do it to all transplant blood and even some organs now, it lessens the chance of the body rejecting it. Perfect for icky fledglings. I sprinted back and stuck it on an IV stand, and then I tried to place the IV. Calm hands calm hands calm hands... Screw it my hands were shaking so much I could barely hold the damn needle. Dr. Cilian pinched it from between my fingers and pushed me out of the way grumbling before I could protest and placed it himself just like that, so easily. God I hate these efficient people!

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

Spiridion had this blatant disregard for absolutely everything and everyone. It didn't matter what it was, but of course he took particular pleasure in disregarding me. In fact such was this disregard that it became twisted and warped in some way, so that things that effected normal people, just didn't have any effect on him. And now, I sat across the table from him in Jury Briefing, I just knew that he was laughing inside. Oh he didn't look like he was, he just looked like the grumpy old sod he always had been, but I knew him better. It was part of his game. I had fired him and now he wanted revenge for that. How he had done this, I didn't know. All I knew that he must have gone through a lot of high-powered humans to achieve this, and I certainly believed him capable. I was only too happy to get this damn trial over and done with and then I could go home and life would return to normal.

My ears were barely paying attention to the little bald human man who was explaining the details of the case to us. There were ten other jurors, apart from Spiridion and myself. One was an eighteen year-old girl called Casey, barely old enough to know her left from her right, there was a brightly coloured kaftaned art student from the University of Manchester called Siobhan, who would have voted 'not guilty' if we were sentencing a serial murderer. Then there was Paul, an OAP with a good sense of humour. Adrian, a rather petit - for lack of a better word – large animal vet with a penchant for corduroy and check shirts who kept looking at his watch and complaining about being forced to take time off work to do this. There was a middle-aged woman called Mia who had three kids who were her entire life, Sanjib, a gay Sikh man with a passion for shoe-designing, Marjorie, an old lady who was about to lose her marbles, Kenneth, a nurse, need I say more? Sandra was a frightening-looking London businesswoman, and Ron was a teacher. We were all sitting around a table like we were conducting a board meeting in a room which smelled of beeswax polish but there wasn't a genuine piece of wood in sight. I stopped myself from yawing the trial was a simple custody battle, a divorced couple fighting over the children. Not a mind-bender, but it would be a long haul. I would be lucky if it ended within a year. The bald man dismissed us, and the other jurors got up. Siobhan asked if anyone wanted to go for coffee. Sanjib said he would, he wanted to talk to her about some designs of his. Casey agreed too, Ron passed, as did Mia and Kenneth, and Sandra and Adrian walked out without so much as a nod to any of the others. I didn't blame them, they had far better places to be, as did I.

"A custody battle eh? I there I thought we were going to see a murder trial."

"Stay away from me Spiridion. You've done enough damage. Can't you see I need to be at the House?"

He smirked at me. "I think you need to be here." He said, taking another step towards me.

"I said stay away from me!" I hissed, glaring at him profusely. He backed away slowly, and walked away from me. Finally, peace and quiet. I knew how to make people leave me alone.

* * *

_Spiridion_

* * *

I clasped at my head and rubbed my temples furiously. The building had flooded, water was crashing down around everyone, men women and children being swept away by the torrent. There was a split second when the fear became real, when water filled by lungs, when I tried to choke but couldn't, when everything went black. I blinked several times and knocked myself out of it as I walked down the street in the middle of Hull, spitting out water, people turning to look at me as I went by. I felt cold, and a shiver travelled up my spine like someone had walked over my grave. Cursing, I made for the nearest bench and sat down, still fighting to keep my vision clear. The February wind was freezing the blood-vessels in my cheeks, and it was a jolly good thing, it was keeping me to my senses. That was the thing with High Priestess Yianna. She was a subtle bulldozer, removing obstacles from her path by bringing them crashing down. Those that had an impact on her life and get close were the ones who could withstand her offensive.

Yianna never revealed her affinity to anyone, that was standard. Maybe it's time she told everyone. Yianna has the ability to make people hallucinate, but not just any old hallucinations. Yianna has the ability to invoke people's greatest fears in visions, wherein the victim lapses into a mental state of almost astral projection, into another reality where the physical implications carry on into their bodies. She calls these realities 'psionospheres'. She can also see illusions herself, her own power shows her what has happened in an area that she passes through empty, from psi fragments left there. And when she was angry, the only way to get out of the psionosphere was to get as far away from her as possible. Bloody woman, she didn't hesitate to use the damn affinity, no matter what people's circumstances were. She spent so much time in her psionospheres she had forgotten what the real world was like. I growled, taking assurance in one thing. If Yianna could tell what had truly transpired through her psionospheres, how would she deal with court proceedings, in which no importance whatsoever was placed upon telling the truth, only upon whoever lies the best?

* * *

_Lucy_

* * *

Later on, I was still assisting with this girl who had jumped off the cliff. I mean castle keep. The doctors had had to operate on some bits of her, internal bleeding from the force of the landing, blah blah blah, they had reset her legs in plaster, pumped blood out of her lungs, and the kid was actually still alive. I felt sad for her, I knew she was bullied and I never wanted anyone to feel so sad that they didn't think their life was worth living. The lads never seemed to go for her, despite her being very beautiful, and the other girls treated her like crap in the pan. It was now early morning, well after hours, and I had been instructed by Dr. Sex to monitor the girl's TPR, so monitoring I was. Temperature normal, respiration low, as patient unconscious, and I was counting the pulse now, a stethoscope stuck into my ears and held to her front. I'm really annoyed right now, because I'm only at twenty seconds, thirty-four beats, that means I have forty seconds to go and I have a really itchy ear. It's driving me insane! Thirty-seven thirty-eight thirty-nine... The door opened. It was Dr. Sex. I pulled the stethoscope from my ears in frustration. Great, now I had to start counting all over again! He held the door open for another figure, who appeared to be Oliver Pendragon. Poor bloke looked knackered, his eyes were red and his feet were somewhat dragging.

"How is she?" he asked, as I itched my ear. Ew ear wax...

"That's just it." said Dr. Sex, taking a glare at me with my finger in my ear. I immediately started talking her pulse again, "She's fine."

"That's good isn't it?"

"But the point is that she really shouldn't be." Dr. Sex continued, all grim again, "I mean how far is that drop? Ninety odd feet? There is no way that even an adult vampyre could have survived a fall like that."

Oliver sighed. "Don't you doctors ever learn not to look a gift horse in the mouth?"

"Oh I'm _not _complaining. But she landed on a rock for Nyx's sakes. There shouldn't have been much of her that wasn't two-dimensional."

"So, what? She's a very very lucky girl."

"And you're sure nothing broke her fall on the way down?"

"Well what is there to break her fall?"

Dr. Sex looked confused. "Like you say," He said, "It's a gift horse."

I pulled the stethoscope from my ears, gently this time, as I remembered how expensive these things were. Pulse was normal. I scribbled it on her chart, before moving to get out of here for the day.

"We're going to move her into isolation later not, so fast Lucy so that we can manage her condition more easily and we can keep a better eye on her. People who've tried to kill themselves once will normally try again and hospitals are a relatively easy place to do it in. Around the clock observation I think. Lucy."

"Yes Dr. S...ilian?"

"Will you go to her room and bring her some clean clothes, toiletries and also something to keep her occupied when she wakes up, some books or the like please?"

I nodded and scurried off, very aware that I had absolutely no idea where her room was, or how I was going to carry all that stuff up here. I would have to drop by the porter anyway as I didn't have a key to her room. The office was still lit, even at this time in the morning. I knocked on the glass.

"Hello." I said, "Could you tell me where Anastasie Parisien's room is please?"

The man picked up a folder from a pile to his right and flicked through it. "Epiphron House, Room fifty-three." He said, "What's your reason for visit?"

Yep, you guessed it, just like Hogwarts, we had a house system. The dorms were on four levels, each level split in two, for boys and girls. Each level was referred to as a House, housing a variation of Firsts to Creps, and were named after the children of Nyx and Erebus. Four girls' Houses, four boys' Houses. The girls' Houses, were Hemera, goddess of the day, Epiphron, god of 'prudence, shrewdness, thoughtfulness, carefulness and sagacity' (I read that on Wikipedia), Thánatos, who was death, and Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance. The name means 'to give what is due'. And in the boys' corner, their respective counterparts were Aether, god of light, Charon, the insurer of safe passage to the afterlife, Hypnos, who was sleep, and Moros, the god of doom, whose inhabitants were often jokingly known as 'morons'. Each House had its stereotypes, for example, Aether boys were the pretty boys, the jocks, Charon were the geeks, Hypnos were just lazy and, you guessed it, Morons were morons. The Hemera girls always said they were the closest to Nyx, as Hemera was Nyx's favourite child, but by Christ they were the biggest airheads and sluts, I'm not even kidding, no wonder we kicked their arses at inter-House, well, inter-House everything. The Epiphron girls were the boffins, the good girls who worked hard, got into Oxbridge and pursued high-powered careers, the Thánatos girls were all emos. Me, I'm a Nemesis girl. Or I used to be. Made sense, seeing as I seem to be my own worst enemy sometimes.

"She's in the Infirmary and I'm here pick up some stuff for her."

The porter nodded, handed me a key, and I hit the stairs. Think of the calories Lucy, the calories... At least I wouldn't need to go for a run today. Her room looked pretty normal actually. Fairly plain, she hadn't done a lot to it, most girls covered their walls with posters of half-naked men and hung fairy lights around the place, there wasn't a heck of a lot in here. I had almost expected to walk in here and discover she was part of a bid for world-domination or that she was some kind of morbid goth. Sticking my nose into her wardrobe, I found a small carry-bag in the bottom and went on the search for essentials. I grabbed her some toothpaste, her toothbrush, face wipes, some shampoo and conditioner, some soap, deodorant. Couldn't see any make-up lying around and to think of it I'd never seen her wear any anyway. She'd need some clean underwear too, and some jeans and a couple of shirts... The bag was getting full, what was I packing for her to leave the country or something? Hm, and Dr. Sex said she'd want something to keep her occupied. Tell the truth there wasn't a lot in here that could pass for boredom breakers, there were just textbooks and files. I checked in her drawers, under her bed, ooh, wait, I found something. There were some old books under her bed. Pulling them out, I wiped dust off them and read the titles. 'Witchcraft Throughout The Ages'? 'Advanced Spells and Rituals'? These looked like they belonged in the S&R department, and even then on the very highest shelves. They were for people who were preparing to take exams to teach S&R at a much higher level than was ever taught at Houses of Night. In universities, maybe. In complete and utter honesty, these may not be hers, from the amount of dust I blew off them they hadn't been opened in ages, and the room allocations get shuffled every year to put the new Firsts and Seconds into dorms of two or three and allow the Thirds and Crepusculars to have rooms of their own. These could have been here for far longer than she was, she probably didn't know they were even there. Still, what if she did? It was a bit creepy.

"Weird..." I said to myself as I replaced them under her bed. Weird indeed.

* * *

**R&R!**


	5. Chasing Cows in Tractors

**_Scarborough Fair_**

* * *

**Me: New one!**

**Let's waste time, chasing cows, around our heads! :D**

* * *

_Tell her to wash it in yonder dry well, _

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, _

_Which never sprung water nor rain ever fell, _

_And then she'll be a true love of mine._

* * *

_Slamming the door behind me, I knew I couldn't take anymore. My knees buckled and I slid down the surface of the door to the floor, wishing that a hole in the ground would appear and swallow me up. I was crying so hard I couldn't see. It didn't matter. My eyes I as knew them were gone, as was the rest of me. I was empty, completely empty, except for the failure to understand the unfairness of this. My heart split and its contents leaked into me like cancer, spreading to every single cell something so deadly it would certainly kill me. I was so aware of how weak I was, how stupid how pathetic. Why why why couldn't I save her when she needed me the most? The pain was unbearable, my soul was ripped into shreds and my life had fallen apart. Christ I loved her, I loved her so much and she was gone because I had let her die! My chest heaved, short of breath. I didn't deserve breath. I was short of breath but yet I couldn't feel my heart. I always imagined that it would jerk and strain if something like this happened, but it didn't. I couldn't feel it beat inside me, there was an empty chasm where it once was, there was nothing, and I knew where it had gone, it had gone with her. There weren't words to describe how much I hated myself now. I felt her go. I felt her fight for her life, I felt her hang on for me, and I felt her fear grip me as she slipped away. The tears came with a new force, she was dead. She hadn't wanted to go, she wanted to live! Burning what was left of the woman I loved so violently, my wife, my soulmate, was more than I could bear. I could still feel her lips against mine, I could still hear her laugh in my ears, her voice telling me she loved me and I broke. _

_Getting to my feet, I threw the cupboard door open, almost throwing it off its hinges. I pulled out a long box and fumbled around for the key that was hidden at the back of the top shelf. It was my favourite rapier blade, and had won me many duels in my lifetime. This sort of thing was not used in sport, but rather in battle. It gave its duellist speed, and cutting edge, literally. I looked at the broken reflection in the steel blade. 'He's the best swordsman in the world', they'd say, 'he's never lost a match'. How wrong they were. For this was a match I could never win._

_I plunged the blade through my heart, slashing through flesh and blood and driving past bone, the tip sticking out of my mid-back. The pain was nothing. Nothing compared to what I already felt. My heart sliced itself further with every beat it took against the metal, my legs went numb and I fell to my knees. I felt the blood drain from me, I felt my organs fail, my body didn't fight. Pain engulfed me, searing, burning, it was excruciating. It was nothing. I _wouldn't_ go through this life without her, I _couldn't_. If I had to die to be closer to Anastasia, my Anastasia, then I would die a thousand times over. My eyes blurred, but just before they did, in the mirror on the wall opposite, in the reflection, I saw a woman standing from around the door. She had an eerie, elvin beauty about her, silver-blonde hair, pale skin, grey eyes. I knew her, but I wasn't sure how. And the last thing I remember thinking was that she seemed sad, but not surprised. _

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

Everything was silent on the Infirmary. That was the way it was supposed to be, and a hospital where nothing needed doing was either a very good one or a very bad one. They had moved Anastasie into the isolation room, so that they could watch her. Hopefully she would be awake and I could try and talk to her a little. I felt ever so guilty about this, even though I knew it wasn't my fault in any way, I suppose 'responsible' is a better way of putting it. A day of classes and I must have looked like I was away with the fairies the entire time. The moment my hand touched the doorknob, I shivered, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. Thanatos had told me, right back when I was first Marked, that my spirit was old, that it had lived on this Earth before, possibly many times before. It was older spirits such as mine, she explained, that could sense the paranormal. Yes anyone could tell there was a ghost around if things started being smashed or eerie singing could be heard, but I seemed to have a knack for knowing where to find it. It was the feeling that someone had walked over my grave, a sixth sense that I had honed in my years as a pupil here, which was extremely odd seeing as I was one of the most sceptical people here. Yet I seemed to be extremely switched on to it somehow. Normally I could feel a mixture of two things, presence, and person. I felt the effect a spirit could have, but I also felt their personalities as well. It's very difficult to explain, I'm not such myself how to put it into words. Behind this door, I was sure, was a spirit. It wasn't a familiar one, one I had come across before. In fact, there was hardly any 'person' to this spirit, it was a manifestation of energy. I opened the door, and closed it behind me.

"Anastasie?" I said gently. She was still asleep, strait-jacketed, and supported by numerous fluffed pillows. It wasn't this that surprised me though. I had stepped into this cloud of energy, and I wasn't the only one affected. All around me, various objects from around the room were floating, yes, you heard me, floating around the room like we were in outer space without a gravitational field. I wasn't as shocked as most would be, this sort of thing was commonplace here, but I sensed no person, no reason behind it, and that was what did shock me. As I walked amongst the floating things, knocking them as I went to see if I could knock them out of orbit, or just to stop them from whacking me in the eye, whichever I thought of first. Suddenly, everything that was floating just dropped. Things clattered to the floor in a series of clangs and smashes. A ballpoint smacked me on the head. All around me was a mess, like someone had just trashed the place. I wasn't sure how I was going to explain this to Dr. Cilian, but I'd better make it a good one.

"How's she do... woah..."

I turned. It was Lucy, the ditzy nurse. Or trainee nurse, whatever it was she was. The girl constantly had a smile painted on her face, and if she really couldn't find an excuse for that, she would just stare in a frightened, doe-eyed way. The girl was sweet, and only wanted to help bless her but she was such a klutz. Right now, it was the doey-eyed thing, staring in disbelief, her shoulders hunched and her knees close, mouth in a little round 'o'. She reminded me of an anime character.

"What the Hell happened in here?" she asked me, looking in awe at all the smashed things, the shattered glass vase, the puddle of water and strewn flowers, the papers of the chart scattered on the carpet.

"One of the ghosts, I think." I said.

"But we don't ever get any down here." She said, her voice void, "Unless it was one of the kids..."

"It wasn't." I said, "There's a first time for everything."

"You saw it?"

I nodded. "Everything was floating like we were in a rocket ship. And then it just fell."

"Freaky." She said, "Well." She huffed, "I know who's going to be cleaning this up."

"Who?"

"Me." She grumbled. "Anyway, how's she doing?" she asked, smiling sunshine again.

"Shouldn't you be telling me that?" I asked her, holding back a chuckle as she nearly tripped over her own feet.

"I'm not qualified." She said, spitting the spare strands of her blonde fringe out of her mouth.

"I can see." I said, referring to her horrible trainee-nurse uniform.

She gave me the narrow eyes and pursed mouth. "I'm Sweeney Todd alright?" I laughed, she was right. "You don't remember me, by any chance?" she asked me as she put her foot up to tie her shoelaces.

"Should I?" I didn't. I shouldn't, should I?

"I was in Firsts when you were in final year." She said. Ah, that's alright then, "Charon, right?"

"Are you suggesting I was a geek?"

She giggled. "You went for Oxbridge didn't you?"

And I got there. "Well that means nothing."

"So what brings you back here?" she asked, going to take Anastasie's pulse with a stethoscope.

"Money." I said, "Or lack of it. This place pays well, for a teaching job."

"These things aren't all about the money you know." She grinned.

"You're kidding right? I owe my friggin' testicles to Cambridge University. Plus I have a circus troupe to fund."

"A, circus troupe?"

"I have eight siblings, all of whom are prepubescent."

"Nice." Anastasie moved, eyes stirring from her medically induced sleep, but Lucy didn't notice, still chatting on and on. I smiled, she still didn't notice, not until Anastasie snatched her wrist away, to which Lucy reacted as if it were a goddess-given miracle. "Holy shit when the Hell did you wake up?" she gasped all wide-eyed.

"When you started, poking me with that thing..." the fledgling grumbled, wriggling against the strait-jacket.

Lucy looked offended. "Your pulse is weak!"

"Leave it Lucy I think it's fair to say that she isn't going to die."

I think Anastasie had woken up like it had been any other day, and that the memory of jumping from the keep came back to her minutes after. She went much paler and her state of actual wellbeing seemed to retract as well.

Lucy replaced the stethoscope around her neck and got up. "Well if you need me I'll be, you know, cleaning stuff." She gave us the thumbs up before leaving.

The door closing left a wide open silence between Anastasie and I. I folded my arms and exhaled. This was going to be blood out of the proverbial stone.

"How are you?" I asked. Stupid question. She remained silent, and I sighed. "Anastasie." I said firmly in the voice I used for seriously telling off the kids, "Everyone else here may tread on broken glass around you, but let me tell you now, I will be doing no such thing." She didn't look at me. "It can't be very comfortable in this." I said, referring to the white strait-jacket crossing her arms over her torso. I leant over and began to undo the ties on it, "I'm just sorry it was necessary." I pulled it off her a bit, leaving most of it for her to do, but she just sat there, half out of it, "Now then." I sat back in my chair, "Where would you like to start?"

"It's not what you think." She said. God she was strange. To look at, to consider in any way at all, she was a mentally deranged girl, but to listen to her, how her voice sounded, she was the sanest person on Earth. Even for a split second she managed to look reasonable.

I folded my arms. "Oh really? How?"

"I couldn't stand it anymore." She said quickly, too quickly, it was a decision made too hastily, "I hate my life, I don't want to go on."

"And why is that?"

It was no coincidence that I was trying my hardest to sound like Spiridion. I knew she trusted him, I needed her to trust me, and more time, time I didn't have. But sounding like Spiridion didn't make me him, and she knew it.

"Isn't it obvious?" she asked me, mind as sound as anything, "Are you blind?"

"Give me a break I've only been here three days."

"I have absolutely nothing keeping me here." She said, "Everything that everyone else lives for, I lack. So why would I stay?"

I'm sure I must have looked to her like I was looking at her from up my nose, but I wasn't convinced. My intuition was sound, sounder than in most other vampyres, especially most other males. It was the sharpest edge I had that wasn't on a sword. And she was lying.

Like she knew what I was thinking, she turned away from me and fixed her attention onto her bedside lamp. "I'm not talking to you."

I snorted and widened my eyes. "Oh yes you bloody well are." I said, "What kind of person do you take me for? Oh, I couldn't possibly understand what you're going through! Why do you think you're the only one to go through difficulties? Let me tell you Anastasie, they're a stone's throw away from referring you to a clinic out there and those other girls in that clinic will have tried to kill themselves too, and you know what? Those girls will have been abused, tortured, _raped_, hit around the face with frying pans, burned with cigarettes, had beer bottles smashed over their skulls! And you think you're in the same boat as them do you?"

Then she turned to face me, her blue eyes like fire and so alive they almost pierced my anger. "I'm not like that!" she hissed.

"Then talk!" I shouted at her, "Prove it! Because if you can't then Nyx help you, you really should be in a strait-jacket!"

That had got her. Anastasie looked for a moment like she was going to burst into tears. She was pale, and so thin it was a miracle she hadn't rejected the Change, clinically, anorexically thin, thin enough to be referred to a clinic for just that! A thought crossed my mind. When I spoke to Yianna about her I was surprised how much the High Priestess dismissed the girl. And was this why, perhaps? Because she was an attention seeker? I didn't know, I had absolutely no way to judge and it drove me up the flipping wall. Who did she think she was?

I was right, wasn't I?

* * *

" 'Ello there Oliver!"

Horses' hooves again. Will this happen every day? I had just wanted to make a speedy trip home to sort the kids out, sort the horse out, sort the house out, and catch some sleep, if I possibly could. Now I would have Demeter's voice echoing off the inside of my head while I did it.

"We have to stop meeting like this." I said to Demeter on her latest ride, this time a very expressive warmblood as it cantered up beside me on the damp sand. I noticed that this time Ellen, Aleron's wife was with her, on something that looked dangerously like a Shire horse.

"Good day?"

"Nobody died."

"Mm, fantastic day then." She said, "How's Anastasie? I haven't had a chance to go up there yet."

"In a strait-jacket."

"Really? I thought they might at least have tranq-darted her."

I rolled my eyes. "They probably did."

"Alrigh' Ahliverrr?" said Ellen, her almost uncomprehendable rural Herefordshire accent adding life to the conversation, probably because 'farmer' was a stone's throw away from 'pirate'. "I ain't seen yew since yew were flairdgin', 'ow yew been?"

I wasn't sure exactly what it was she did here, she ran the House's farm I think, but I don't know the details. Listening to her gave me a feeling of reassurance, that I was home. Despite being a Northerner, I didn't sound like one, I often got criticised for sounding posh actually, and in the same way, despite living next-door to the town, I wasn't an urban person, I far, far preferred muddy gateways to traffic lights any day, and every time I heard her voice, or smelled her when she stank of cows, it made me smile.

"Not too bad Ellen, and yourself?"

"Blooday TB test came back wit' three reactors didn' it? Blooday spittin' Aye was. They bin talkin' ta badgers they 'ave, my best 'eifers. Gotta get my Lantra sorted but can't get 'old of the blooday vet eitha, 'e's gone off to 'Ull ta sit in a courtroom."

"Oh that's where Yianna's gone. And Ellen that reminds me, I need some more needles for intramuscular injections, can you bring some up for me?" said Demeter absent-mindedly. How the hell did jury duty remind her of needles? The eminent torture perhaps?

"Yew mean 'dowse cow-stabberrrs? Ye Aye'll bring 'em."

"Sorry to hear that." I said, even though I didn't know much about what having reactors meant, other than that the reactors would have to be culled, and I didn't have a clue what Lantra was.

"Aye'm sorry t'hear 'bout your tutee 'dis evenin'. Shahkin'. Poor girl I 'ope she comes gurd."

"She's not a cow Ellen." Said Demeter from her warmblood, sitting calmly as it jumped at a seagull taking off nearby.

Ellen raised her eyebrows. "Aye ain't never said she wahs Demee-err, an' even if she were, she'd be an 'eifer, naht a cow." She said. We kept walking, and Ellen opened her mouth again to fill the silence, "Yew know," she said, "Aye 'ad a really weird dream las' nigh'."

"Ooh was it prophetic?" I said, sarcasm just about evident.

"No, it was jus' weird."

"Working in daylight will do that to a vamp."

"Oh here we go..." said Demeter, rolling her eyes, "Is this anything like when you dreamt that somehow a helicopter got buried in the ground where the washing line is and that I was slave driving people to dig it out?"

Ellen grinned. "No, 'dis wan's betterr." She said, holding her hand off the rein in a straight rigid stance in a gesture of sincerity, "Aye wahs milkin' righ', an' Mark, my 'erdsman walked in the parlour an' said tha' some a the 'eifers 'ad got out the south field an' were 'eading for the town centre, so we 'opped on the tractor an' we chased 'em, an' we couldn't blooday catch 'em nifty buggers! We were doing the monster-truck thin' with the tractor and we couldn't catch 'em, like they were jet-propelled or somethin'."

Demeter threw her head back and laughed so hard that she nearly fell off her horse, and I've gotta admit, I joined her. "Jet-propelled cows?" she howled, leaning over the horse's neck.

"Ye."

"Chasing jet-propelled cows in a tractor?"

"It gets betterrr. Then Aye realised 'dat we was chasin' more tractors, an' the cows were in the tractors! Drivin' 'em like! Aye ain't never seen the like a it!"

"Get help!"

"Aye know, it was great fun!"

I squinted a little through my laughter into the sun that was directly in front of us, albeit dim. "You know, I had a really weird dream last night too."

"Oh not you as well!"

"Well get this one: I killed myself." I grinned.

Demeter's face deteriorated into disbelief and ridicule. "Get help."

"It's jus' bicarse of 'dat girl lad, it's your head playin' tricks ahn yew." Said Ellen reassuringly, "At least yours makes sense."

I shook my head as the memory of it floated back into my head, along with it that odd, half-out-of-it feeling that made you unsure if this moment was actually a dream and it would cloud over into nothing if you woke up right now. Had I dreamed it really? I'd never dreamt it before. I had had strange dreams before, particularly that one where you leave for work in the morning, lock the house, drive off, and then realise you've forgotten something, so you go back, unlock the house, retrieve whatever it is you've forgotten, leave, lock up, drive again, and of course you look back in your bag and you've got the wrong thing again, and so the cycle continues, at the end of it I just end up feeling useless and frustrated like I haven't slept at all. I also have the one where I'm looking for someone, I don't know who, I just know I'm looking for them, and time is running out, and I run around madly like I'll die if I don't find them. I look in the oddest places too, like under cushions and under the kitchen sink. I never dream lucidly, I can't control what I do, so I can't just stop rooting around in the airing cupboard for this person for a moment and say to myself 'hang on, this is silly'. Whatever I dream, I'm always on a mission. This was so ultimate, like it was the final mission to end my life. The pain I felt was so real it had freaked me out for the rest of the day. I think that's why I had a go at Anastasie. It was like I had been shown what kind of pain you had needed to be in to take your own life, and I felt almost offended that she would take it for any lesser sorrow. Now when I looked back I didn't regret what I had said to her, she had to hear that to pull herself together again, but maybe the bits of her were indeed more scattered than anyone knew.

"I know, but it was weird." I said finally. Both Demeter and Ellen could see that this was bothering me, the silence from the two most talkative women I knew was evidence enough of that.

"What did you do to yourself?" Demeter asked.

I listened to the clip-clop of horseshoes on the sand wiping the confusion from my head. These animals calmed me. I wouldn't so much admit it to non-horsey friends that weren't female or gay, but I really did love horses. I lifted my right hand and placed it on the neck of Ellen's great big Shire thing, patting it firmly. "I stabbed myself." I said, "With a rapier blade."

"Nice."

My eyes narrowed at the memory. "I was mourning someone I loved, my wife, and I blamed myself for it. And just as I blacked out, I saw a woman in the mirror, she was behind me looking from around the door, and she didn't look very surprised."

"How morbid!" Demeter commented, "Was that woman your 'wife' back from the dead?"

"No, no, I have no idea who she was other than that I knew she was a friend."

"A friend eh?" asked Ellen, nudging me with her boot. I scowled at her, "Maybe you should get counselling."

"I can't believe I'm considering it."

"It's just a dream." Said Ellen, "It don't mean nothin'."

"I know." I said, as I remembered the feeling of metal in my chest my muscles inadvertently flexed, to shake the feeling off and remind me that it hadn't actually happened, "It was just, really really vivid."

* * *

**R&R!**


	6. Elephant in a China Shop

_**Scarborough **_

* * *

**Me: This is my favourite chapter so far, quite symbolic methinks. :D**

* * *

_Spiridion_

* * *

The first thing I noticed when I sat down in the courtroom was the seats. Christ these were hard, and I was going to have to sit here for the next three hours at least! I'd be walking down the street with numb buttocks that's for sure. The second thing I noticed, was that Yianna neither spoke to nor acknowledged me as we took our seats. Hardly surprising, but I couldn't deny my enjoyment at watching her in a huff. She sat a row in front of me, her neat black hair pulled back in a perfect ponytail, no hair out of place. I yawned - my brain was already on autopilot, if I was going to sit here for three hours, I barely noticed as people filed into the room, the amount of bodies in here raising the heat by at least five degrees.

They came at each of us with a bible, or whichever religious tome we wanted to swear by. We were supposed to hold our right hand over the tome and recite the oath, that by whichever god we worshipped we would faithfully judge the defendant. I recognised some of the people here, from around the building generally, and before, where I had seen them crowded around the coffee machine and tucking into their sandwiches on various benches dotted around the place, and then they looked like people, they chatted, laughed, sighed, their faces had expressions. And as I sat here now, I had half-expected them to be the same people they were then. No such bloody luck there. All of them were robots, androids, programmed no doubt onto auto-prosecute.

When they came to Yianna with the bible, they put it away with the other religious tomes and began scrambling around for another, of course there were no vampyre 'bibles', there were various scriptures but not a proper bible. Yianna got fed up of them quickly, and held her right hand up, palm forwards.

"I swear by Nyx that I will faithfully try the defendant and give a true verdict according to the evidence."

Her voice was dark and annoyed, evident of how she hated faffing. They brought the various tomes to my row, and I was surprised by how many of my fellow jurors refused the bible and chose an Atheist oath. I sat back in my seat lazily. I was already bored. When they came to me, I held up my hand, in more of a wave gesture than a flat palm. If they were going to waste my time I might as well waste theirs. Yianna was looking over her shoulder at me and how long it was taking me to answer.

"I solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will faithfully try the defendant and give a true verdict according to the evidence."

Everyone in the room blinked, and Yianna's anger at me hit a whole new level. I wouldn't have been surprised now if she had actually exploded and gone through the roof like a rocket on Bonfire Night. No kidding it may actually happen...

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

I couldn't believe my ears. Spiridion was unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable! The man was deranged in every possible way! How on Earth could a vampyre, a _vampyre, _choose to take an Atheist oath? I tore my death-glare away from him and faced forwards again. I didn't want to look at him. Quite what he thought he was playing at I had no idea! Was he doing it to annoy me? Is that was it was? Was he trying to ruffle my feathers? And how _dare _he dishonour Nyx?

I looked at the couple who were the reason that the rest of us were here. On either side of the room, their faces glum and their stares like daggers. She was wearing a leather jacket over a leopard print top, a small skirt and painfully high stiletto heels. Her boobs were hanging out all over the place and her face looked like it was botoxed into position. I don't like stereotyping, it's wrong, quite frankly, but she looked like a right old cow. Ellen would say 'cow dressed as heifer'. I paused in my trail of thought. I shouldn't judge the woman by her clothes; she was probably a very loving mother. She looked close to tears and was sitting slumped in her seat with a tissue pressed to her face. I looked across the courtroom to the blue corner. He looked a little like someone who might work on Ellen's farm, quite a big chap, strong, pretty much a farmer in a suit. He looked gaunt but determined, his jaw set.

Evidence was being brought against him for neglect, adultery, and abuse. They had three children, all under ten, who had been interviewed by CAFCAS, the people who question the children prior to court proceedings. We listened to how he drank, smoked, came home late and made her raise the children alone, how he hit them and made them swear not to tell, how he earned thousands in a construction business but wouldn't let her have any of it for them. She was in tears again, and he simply looked livid. I sat and watched her, and prayed that for her own dignity she would stop. When she answered questions, her speech was so horrible we could barely understand her, and I was a Brummy girl.

I came back into the real world. His solicitor was speaking now. He asked the judge if he might show evidence to the jury and the prosecution. The judge allowed this. The solicitor frowned and pulled several laminated sheets from his desk, and walked out towards the woman in the stand.

"Ms Evans?"

"Yeah?"

The solicitor held the laminated sheets out in front of her nose. "Do you know what these are?"

She wrinkled her nose, and looked like a deer in the headlights. "Well they cheques inn'ey?"

"Yes they are." Said the lawyer, "Copies, actually. Each and every one of them made out to your son Jack." The woman was silent. The lawyer continued, "Each and every one of them made out, by clients of your weight-loss group!" The woman was pale, and immediately sprouted fresh tears. "Hiding your money in children's accounts." He accused, "There is no tax on children's earnings is there Ms Evans?" he returned to his desk momentarily, "The second piece of evidence I would like to show the court are copies of bank statements belonging to Ms. Evans, and a Nationwide passbook belonging to Mike Evans, her son..." he picked up more laminated sheets as we were passed the ones of the cheques. Clever, persuading clients to pay money into the child's account, tax-evasion, and highly illegal. We saw the bank statements and the passbook in turn. The woman had an account with the Royal Bank of Scotland, My eyes watered at the letters. Thousands and thousands of pounds being spent out every week, in Ralph Lauren, Gucci, and even consultations with a cosmetic surgeon. Further laminates appeared, bankruptcy notices from Barclays, warning letters from Queen Ethelburga's, a private boarding school that fees had not been paid, non-payment of taxes, loans amounting to ridiculous sums. The times money was withdrawn from the child's account coincided with expenditures in Dolce and Gabbana. I exhaled in disbelief. These sheets of paper and plastic were thoroughly smeared in mucky fingerprints left by fear. I saw them, felt them as I read through them, anxiety rubbed off onto my hands like wet ink and painted my palms black. I rubbed my hands like I was rubbing in hand-cream. My affinity fed on fear as my body did on blood, and this fear was so strong it was enough to draw a psionosphere.

_I was standing outside a house. It was one of those really nice houses in a quiet rural neighbourhood, not a farm house but a smart barn conversion. I was standing in front of the door, a great big oak thing. That was never a good start to a psionosphere. It meant that people's fears were hidden, literally behind closed doors, and even now, I didn't know who's fears these were. Treading carefully, I opened the door and braced myself against a strong warm breeze that came from within the house, commonplace for psionospheres, feeling warm or cold with whatever transpires, but warm and cold could mean anything, it just meant a change. I could hear the sound of a television in the background, and then a loud voice speaking, pausing, then speaking again, she had to be on the phone somewhere. It was a nice house, very nice, whoever lived here had a good salary, but the decor was somewhat, strange, it was very eccentric, not really what I would have expected to be in here. Leaning against the doorway to what was a living room, I saw the three children, curled up on the sofas, eyes glued to the TV, as you do. It was the old version of Tom & Jerry they were watching, this kind of thing I watched as a kid, I had no idea they still showed this stuff. I heard the woman end her phone call, her voice was unmistakeable. _

"_Yer dinna's ready!" she called from the kitchen, and I felt the breeze their rush for the table created as they ran past me. They couldn't see me. I followed them into the kitchen, where they all started tucking into a plate of chicken nuggets, chips and peas. I saw her – she was dressed as badly as ever, mini-skirt, cleavage and an overly-frilly shirt, her make-up was thickly plastered over her crow's feet. Her eyes flashed onto the oldest of her three offspring, and they narrowed in a nasty way. _

_She jabbed one of her talon-like nails into his shoulder. "Wha' yew been snackin' on today then?" she asked him._

_The boy's hand in which he held his fork lost all its enthusiasm, and the fork clinked on the plate. He looked hurt. "Nothing mum, I've been really good today."_

_I noticed that when he spoke, he was well-spoken. The mother sneered. "Liar like yer foockin' father yew are. An' now I suppose yer gonna ea' all tha' aren' yew? Fat bastard."_

_My state of calm slipped from my grasp like a block of ice. My eyes were wide, my mouth was agape and I made no attempt to correct myself. How could she? That boy wasn't the skinniest of kids but he wasn't fat, a little puppy fat to lose but he wasn't overweight. I could see tears in his eyes, but the other children sat in silence and didn't look up from their plates. His fork dropped to the plate and he wiped his eyes on his sleeve – he couldn't have been older than ten._

"'_Ad enoof?" she asked him, leaning in right close to him, "Good."_

_The last thing I saw her do was take his plate of food from his placemat and put it on the floor for the dog. _

Anger flooded through me like a wildfire. There were very few times in my life when I had wanted to use my affinity to hurt someone, but this was definitely one of them! My hands were shaking – I contemplated the possibilities, if she was afraid of something that would kill her, theoretically I could kill her... But no, all she was afraid of was of the court discovering that very dinnertime. A venomous snake would probably die if it bit her.

Through her tears, the woman screamed across the courtroom so loud it gave us tinitis. "YEW SET ME UP YEW FOOCKING BASTARD! CAN'T BEAR TO SEE A WORKIN' CLASS WOMAN OFF AN ESTATE GET WHAT SHE DESERVE IN THIS LIFE EH? TRYIN' TA KICK ME BACK DOWN WERE I COMES FROM ARE YER? YEW AN' YER MONEY ALL'S YEW CARE ABOUT YEW RICH ASS'OLE! OI'S GOT NUFIN AN' YEW'S GOT EVERYTHIN' AN' YEW STILL SET UP LIES ABOU' ME AND ALL YEW FANCY LAWYERS, BORN WITH FOOKIN' SILVER SPOONS IN YER GOBS YEW ALL BELIEVE 'IM DON' YER?"

Court was adjourned for Ms. Evans to calm down, and everyone around me started whispering. I shook my head in disgust.

"So what do you think?" came a voice from behind me. Spiridion.

"I think she's revolting." I said, trying to hide the emotion in my voice.

"You do realise that there's more to come." He said, "The courts always favour the mother. And the CAFCAS reports are still to come.

"But she's lying." I said firmly, "She'd tell the children if they didn't lie to CAFCAS they'd be locked up without food for a week!"

He seemed to be smirking behind me. "Oh, but CAFCAS' word is final." He said, sarcasm dripping, "Without some divine intervention, you know who the court will be too afraid to punish. And that man will never see his children again."

"She's ridiculous." I said, folding my arms, "You think that any sensible judge in Britain would give _her _custody? They aren't that stupid Spiridion."

Don't be stupid.

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

For a while I thought no-one was coming today. I think I sat there for hours, days and nights passing without any means of me measuring them. Adult vamps always knew what the time was and so thought there was no need for us fledglings to know. I was fine now, my body had almost healed, that is, the bigger breaks would need a bit of time yet, but otherwise I felt fine, which was weird because I had very few points in my life where I would identify myself as fine. I think I was probably high on the drugs they were giving me, and I probably would have withdrawal symptoms from them later, but now I was just bored. I _didn't_ want to go outside. I liked this isolation room with its bolts and locks perfectly, it was keeping everyone out. I was used to my own company and it was by far the best I got in this place. But oh how bored I was! Sleeping was the best way to pass the time now, I had spent so much time in bed, with the soft pillow and mattress to comfort me, the thick duvet to hide me, where I could dream and not be considered insane. How beautiful my dreams were, where I was popular, liked, sought after. I was still sure it wasn't me – I failed to understand myself. I wasn't a horrible person, I was a nice person, I knew that, so why did everyone else think I was odd? Of course all dreams have to come to an end sooner or later, and with them they bring the early evening rain. And that brings me to where I am now, lying in bed wishing that I didn't have to wake up today and reflecting on what a mess my life was. I didn't want it to be like this, sure, I liked to 'sail my own ship', but a part of me was longing to be wanted. I wanted people to seek me out as a friend, once, just once, I wanted boys to look at me as I passed and think to themselves 'wow she's hot'. Of course, it never happens. I feel like I'm shrivelling, slowly being zapped of all my energy, until I really won't have enough to get up in the evening. I missed Spiridion more than ever. They thought I was having some kind of inappropriate affair, something sexual. Idiots. What I needed wasn't something sexual, it was something platonic. Spiridion could give me what no one else could - a father. I would give anything for him to be my real father, he knew exactly how to draw the best out in a person. I know most would say the only thing Spiridion knew how to do was grumble and draw out the worst in people, but he only did so for his own amusement, and the amusement of others, if they were lucky and he was in a good mood. Professor Pendragon was young, so young it was impossible to think of him as a mentor, I almost distrusted him because of his own lack of life-experience. The only thing that gave me confidence in him was his intelligence. Cambridge-educated, eloquent, and even though he lived just up the road, he didn't sound Northern at all, he spoke Queen's English, and seemed fairly middle-class. It was weird to speak to him, he looked so young but acted so maturely, to look at, he was someone who you might run into at a party, a bit older but still part of the same social age group, but he was an adult, it was a huge contrast between character and appearance. I suppose his maturity gave me confidence as well. But I wasn't going to tell. I couldn't tell him why I jumped. I would just be considered more of a freak!

I tried desperately to clear my mind but nothing budged. I was lying with my eyes still closed fast and listening to the rain beating down on the glass panes, the wind howling of the rock edges. The Infirmary was one of the only rooms here to have windows, as it was located at the outside for ease of medicine deliveries, but if all the walls had had windows, I'm not sure I would have wanted to look out of them on a day like today. Earlier I had been trying to do the sudokus in the Daily Mail, to alleviate the boredom, I liked those little puzzles, completing the really hard ones made me feel that I could succeed at something the others couldn't, and sitting in here day after day I needed something to keep me mentally functioning, but with the lack of a pencil to do them with - that was considered a dangerous item for me, too pointy - I had quickly given up and tried to go back to sleep again.

My back was to the door when I heard it click. Wriggling around, I saw it was Lucy, the clumsy nurse, trainee nurse, whatever. She had some breakfast for me, covered with a plastic plate cover. As she brought it over to me, she left the door to Isolation open, allowing my eyes to wonder out into the Infirmary.

"Morning!" said Lucy cheerily.

My entire body began to shake. My palms sweated and suddenly I couldn't breathe. It was Declan White, pressing a towel to his eye, it was soaked in blood, like he'd been in a fight.

Lucy put the tray of food down on my bedside table and put a hand on my shoulder. "Anastasie are you okay?"

Blood drained from my head and I was sure I must have been as white as a ghost. She was talking to me, asking me again and again and again if I was okay but I wasn't, I couldn't hear her properly anymore.

"_Shut the door!_" I tried to say, I don't even know if it came out right, "_Shut the door..._"

"Anastasie I need you to put your hands up in front of your face and take deeps breaths okay...?" she demonstrated.

"SHUT THE DOOR!" I screamed, couldn't she hear me?

Lucy stood up from me, her face straight. "Help!" she called, "I need some help in here!"

"_I'll tell you what else is a good lick Nasty..."_

I clasped the sides of my head as doctors and nurses flocked around me, my ears filled with sounds, my eyes with pictures I didn't want! My stomach wretched and my eyes blurred – shit I was going to be sick but I was going to faint. I tried to lean out over the bed to find the bowl to be sick in, and my arm, formerly strong and supporting me just flopped, I saw the floor approaching me at high speed, and, bracing myself for the blow, I felt nothing.

* * *

_Lucy_

* * *

Holy shit this girl _was_ mad! The other nurses and I helped support her as vomit trickled from her mouth and spilled over the carpet, we had to hold her upside down, as she was completely out of it, and if she choked on her own vomit she'd do a Hell of a lot of damage! And I brought her a full fry-up as well! She had been doing so well! Ah I really suppose I shouldn't get worked up about these things. She came around really quickly, thank God, as was able to chuck up the rest for herself. These were the clinical signs of a severe panic attack, the kind triggered by a psychological phobia, what had set it off. I couldn't have been me, at least it shouldn't have been. Did she see something outside? It was entirely possible that she was high on the drugs we were giving her and was hallucinating. We held her where she was as she came back to her senses and spat up the rest of the barf. I used my spare arm that wasn't steadying hers to hold her hair back out of her face as she did so, before we lowered her back onto her bed again. She was still shaking and I didn't need a stethoscope to see her pulse was rather too high. Dr. Sex broke through the cuffuffule with a syringe and injected something into her arm before she even noticed he was there. Way to stab someone. Within a few seconds, her eyelids drooped and her muscles relaxed.

He pulled the needle from the empty syringe and dropped it into the sharps bin, "I've given her a spasmolytic and an antiemetic to stop her being sick under sedation."

My brain lit up. "You gave her a what?"

He sighed. "'Spasmolytic' not 'spastic' Lucy."

How did he know what I was thinking? "Oh." I said, "Right..."

He glared at me. "I'm up here, Lucy."

Ah crap I was staring at his chest again. Quick Lucy! Think of an excuse! "I'm, short?"

He frowned. "You're five foot eight."

"I'm shorter than you though, right?"

Shit.

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

I had a spare minute, so I thought I'd better dash up to the Infirmary to check how Anastasie was doing before I left, I had to get my oh so ever so dear little brother Chris to an optician's appointment for nine and then I had to get him back to school, there was a frickin' mountain of ironing to do and I haven't signed any of their homework diaries yet. Christ I sounded like a middle-aged housewife... My step slowed as I went down the corridor... Wow... I really was a middle-aged housewife. What has my life become?

"Hi Lucy!" I said, "How is she?"

Lucy looked extremely tired as she sat at the front desk, dark sacs under her eyes and her entire frame slumping. She hadn't even bothered to hide the copy of _OK! _under the keyboard drawer when she saw me. "Oh hey." She said, "She's, stable..."

"Stable?"

"She had a panic attack this morning, passed out while being sick. She's okay now but we've still got her on antiemetics and sedatives, so she's a little out of it."

I pulled a face. "Christ, the kid's a disaster. I'm not going to get much out of her today then."

She scoffed. "Speak for yourself. You didn't have to clean up the vomit!"

"Can I see her?"

"Go right in."

I did so. She was sitting with her knees hunched up to her torso at the end of her bed, looking out of the window at the North Bay, which was more turbulent now that it had been for the rest of the day. "It's really kicking up out there huh?"

She actually looked at me this time. There was only one clue as to the amount of drugs the doctors had given her – her pupils were dilated, not a lot, but more than usual, enough to make it feel like you were talking to Willow from Buffy. "Yeah, I guess." She said. Wow. If she was this amenable we would have to put her on drugs more often.

"I heard you had a panic attack this morning." I said, sitting down in the chair at her bedside, "How are you feeling?"

"Better now."

"What set it off?"

She shrugged. "Lucy left the door open and I could see out." Okay... "I saw Declan White out there."

Her frame crumpled as she said it. "Did he come in here?" She shook her head. Was she so intimidated by the other fledglings that merely the sight of some of them provoked a panic attack? "Are you afraid of him?"

"He makes me feel sick." She said, "He takes the piss out of me and I don't like it, it's more the me not liking it that makes me feel sick as opposed to him intimidating me actually." She continued, "I don't like being made this big," she held up her thumb and her index finger, "By a little prick."

I chuckled. "Why do you let him bother you so?"

"I don't, consciously..." she said, still staring out the window, her cheek pressed against the cold glass, "But when I see him it's like I just seize up and there's nothing I can do to stop it."

"That must really suck."

"I hate it. I hate him."

"Is that why you jumped off the keep?"

She sounded annoyed as she exhaled, and rolled her big bright blue eyes back towards me. "Why does everybody think I jumped off the cliff because I wanted to kill myself?"

"Um..." I pretended to look surprised by the question in an attempt at irony, "Well, it might have something to do with the fact that you told me you did."

"What and you couldn't tell I was lying?" she laughed, "Haha! Some vamp you are!"

"I did actually." I retaliated, "Just because I didn't tell you that."

She laughed again, leaning her head back and crossing her legs. "Ah you've got a brain!"

I raised my eyebrows. "Are such individuals lacking here then?"

"If they think I was trying to kill myself!" she said, she sounded less and less with it as she went, "I'm not that silly! No no no, the whole point was I was trying to survive!"

"Well if you were trying to survive by jumping off the keep it probably wasn't the best way to do it Anastasie. Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Ahaha, I didn't want everyone to think that I was an even bigger freak than I already was but then again you've never seen me as anything less so I suppose it doesn't matter anymore."

"So are you going to elaborate or are you going to try and kill me with the suspense?"

Settling her hands into her lap, she closed her eyes and began to whisper to herself. I didn't understand what she was saying, even if I could hear the words clearly, but as soon as she spoke, I could feel that invisible force in the room again, it filled the air around us, going around me and through me, it was exactly the same as when I had walked in the other day and everything was floating, except this time, the aura was without a doubt identifiable as hers. I felt it close in on me, my chest to be more precise, and I looked down as if I thought for one moment that I might be able to see it.

I always kept a pen on me, pens in this place were few and far between and to leave one lying around was for someone else to walk off with it, so I always kept a biro in the left breast pocket of my black fencing uniform, fairly normal, as most of us did. I watched in something akin to awe as the biro unhooked itself from my pocket and floated across the short distance between us to settle gently in her palm. Her fingers closed around it triumphantly, but her face was a different story.

"How did you know?" she asked, almost accusingly.

"Know what?"

"That I was going to move the pen?"

"I can sometimes detect paranormal auras. Yours was a bit similar."

She looked thoroughly confused. "Is that your affinity?"

"No, no, it's, more like a sixth sense." I said, leaning my arms a bit more casually on those of the chair. "So you're telekinetic?"

"No it's not just that." She said quickly, "I can do anything."

"_Anything_?"

She looked uncomfortable. "Well, I can make things happen by saying spells."

"We'd better get you a broom and a pointy hat then!"

She rolled her eyes and reverted them to the window. "See that's the problem." She said sadly.

"What?"

"People think I'm a freak as it is." She said quietly, and I felt the weight of what I'd just let slip out of my mouth, "Can you imagine what they'd say, if they knew?" she looked back at me with those blue eyes and guilt seized hold of me, "I don't think I could stand that."

"Sorry." I said solemnly, "But why did this want to make you jump off the cliff?"

"I wanted to see what I could do." She said simply, "See if I could support myself at that kind of height. Of course, as you can see it didn't quite go according to plan."

My eyebrows rose before I could stop them. "I think that's a bit of an understatement."

"Can I swear you to secrecy?"

Although I had expected that question to come sooner or later, I had expected it to be the latter, and not to be said quite so dramatically. "It's the law isn't it?" It was, pupil-teacher confidentiality. The bain of everyone's lives.

"You won't tell anyone?"

"Not if you don't want me to." She gave me the wary glance which told me that she didn't believe me. "Well if no one comes at you with it you'll know I haven't then won't you?"

She folded her arms. A strange stance for a girl who had previously been in a strait-jacket to take up. "Fine."

I got to my feel and began to leave. "I have to go Anastasie I have to get my brother somewhere for nine. But I'll see you tomorrow?"

"See you." She said, "Oh wait you forgot your pen!"

"Keep it." I smiled, "See you tomorrow."

The kid must be bored out of her brains up here, I thought to myself. I could find another pen, eventually, it wasn't as if I had a lot of marking to do for Fencing, and what were they, 20p in Tesco? It was like the thought had leapt right out of my head. Just as I left, out of the corner of my eye, for the very first time, I saw her smile, as she crawled across her bed, curled up under the covers, reaching for the newspaper and dug into the puzzles page as the rain hammered down on the window.

* * *

_Lucy_

* * *

It was getting on by the time Oliver was done talking to Anastasie, and I didn't envy him having to walk across the beach in a dismal storm. _OK! _mag was pretty damn dismal as well, Missyukae, that plastic supermodel who thinks she can sing got married again for the fifth time, but this time to a man, the interviews were so clichéd that I got bored looking at the pictures of her gravity-defying wedding dress and started to watch the people around me. I watched Oliver leave and stride down the hall, no doubt to find a floor-length coat to keep himself dry going home, anyone else mad enough to walk across the beach in weather like this would see a Darth Vadar walking towards them and run for the hills! Haha! I laughed at the concept, Darth Vadar in Scarborough...

So when Mark, the farm herdsman walked in through the dramatic double doors, it wasn't him I was surprised to see. I mean I was surprised to see him, one he's a human and two he's as healthy as a cow, but he wasn't what shocked me the most. In his tree-trunk like arms lay Ellen, still in overalls, her dark brown hair tied back in a scruffy ponytail. She was covered from head to toe in muck, straw, blood, and her entire front and her arms up to her shoulders were smeared with blood and something clear and slimy. She was unconscious and both of them were soaked through to the bone.

Little after that did I realise that Mark was almost as difficult to understand as Ellen. "The bull 'ad her!" he said as I guided him to put her down on a clean bed in the ward and pressed my emergency panic button, "We was at a calvin' on the east field an' 'e jus' went for her. I dunno 'ow 'e even got in the ruddy field! I was in the pick-up gettin' some iodine an' 'e trampled her, I drove at 'im and saw 'im off but she's beat pretty bad!"

The closer I was to them both the worse I realised they smelled, but it didn't matter. I had a job to do. Think Lucy: What would Zac Braff do?

"What's happened Lucy?"

Oh looky-here it's Dr. Sex floating onto the scene like he always does, all we need now is a few cameras and it'd be runway!

"Trampled by a bull."

"That's not one we see too often."

"This _is _Ellen Ainscombe we're talking about."

The last time she came up here she'd been kicked by a cow and had a broken leg, it was a partial blessing that she had been knocked out this time because last time the expletives had rung through the halls for hours, the other nurses and I had started sticking cotton wool in our ears, Head Nurse Ezriel had even started to sing 'Ring-o-ring-o-rosie' at one point. And as tactless as it was to sing a nursery rhyme about the Bubonic Plague in a room of very sick people, she had a point: Ellen could be deafening.

And so I was just fetching, carrying, supporting and jabbing my way through yet another two hours. It was frickin' ten o' clock in the morning and this was the fifteenth hour of the shift that should have ended seven hours ago! We were short-staffed at the moment, Nyx knows why, but they had somehow been so stuck that they'd put me on front desk. Me! Sweeney Todd! God I was tired. Finally, the ward calmed down again, Ellen had been put back together again, but Dr. Sex wanted the day-shift nurse to monitor her closely, she was conscious but not completely in the clear, we actually needed her to be conscious to tell us where the pain was, any internal damage would remain masked if she didn't say 'ow' – or in her case, swear – when we prodded her. She was awake again, and sure enough the expletives had begun, and we had prodded her, only resulting in more expletives. She was extremely uncoordinated and her words had become even less understandable, she had been complaining of a serious headache when she came to and an MRI scan, whilst, thank Nyx, ruled out any haemorrhaging, proved the presence of cerebral oedema and increased cranial pressure consistent with cerebral contusion, basically bruising of the brain tissue. She was on anti-inflammatories big time to stop the affected tissue from swelling, as well as sedatives to keep her blood pressure low. If we couldn't manage it with drugs then surgery would be an option, which meant Dr. Sex would be up well into the day.

It was all we could do to keep Aleron out for the duration of the initial treatment. I had taken a peek out of door occasionally to check that he was still there, and he was, pacing up and down the hall, his face lacking colour. He was a tall and slim man, with thick mahogany hair and bluey-grey eyes. It was so strange to see him in anything other than total calm, and here he was about to tear his hair out of his skull. As soon as we let him in he was so shocked at her state that he was silent for a moment, simply taking in the sight of her. Retaking up my position at the front desk, I hid my smile behind my computer screen. I loved watching them, it was like curling up with a box of chocolates and a good movie. They had been together for years, longer than any of the fledglings, and there were numerous stories surrounding their relationship. It was the kind of thing Hollywood directors got rich with. Aleron sat down next to her and took her hand in his, despite the fact we had cleaned her up as best we could there were still traces of blood on her hands and arms. He didn't care. The way she looked at him through what must have been a drug-induced haze was just so beautiful I could almost do a little twirl. When no one was looking. I wondered what he saw when he looked at her. Most people just saw her as the smelly, incoherent woman who'd had her hands shoved up a cow's privates for the last hour and a half in the pouring rain, maybe he saw her as the girl who spent the last hour and a half bringing new life into the world, the girl whose eyes shone with the effort, who smelled of hard work and determination in a male-dominated industry. If only someone would look at me like that, I would be one seriously happy girl.

"Ellen?"

"Aleron..."

"What happened?"

She grinned lop-sidedly. "We's got ourselves an 'eifer..."

His eyes were alight with panic. "They told me that bloody bull went for you! You're lucky to be alive!"

"Nah Aye jus' didn' move fahst enough, Bully got out 'dat pen again, I'll 'ave Mark look at 'dat fence tamorrow..." she sighed as she ran out of breath and looked at him through lidded eyes. " 'Dat calf's gorgeous she is, awful presentation, almos' came out backwards she did, Aye 'ad ta turn 'er 'round but Aye got 'er out. Beau-iful little wan."

"It hasn't shut you up." He smiled, "I thought it would shut you up but it hasn't."

As I watched him kiss her so sweetly that my head went dizzy I started thinking about the people that came in and out of here and how it changed their lives. Whether it be lovers whose bond is made stronger, family who never knew they cared, or simply that one single person in the world who believed in you, being in a hospital environment seems to bring out the rawest of emotions in everybody, but most of the time it was just cuts and scrapes. Whether it was going to be just cuts and scrapes or whether it was going to turn into a full blown infection, I can't wait to see. In any case, I'll be here, dressed as Sweeney Todd and doing the patients about as much good as an elephant in a china shop.

So where the bloody Hell is Ezriel to take over this effin' shift? This chair is lumpy and my back is killing me!

**R&R!**


	7. Blatant Disregard

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

**Me: Hello again, sorry about the wait, had a lot of crap going on at home these few weeks. Hope you like this one!**

**Note: The name "Gwenhwyfar", the name given to the S&R professor, is the Welsh version of "Guinevere", and translates as "the white enchantress". **

* * *

_Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn,_

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,_

_Which never bore blossom since Adam was born,_

_And then she'll be a true love of mine._

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

"How are you today?"

I turned my head away from him. While I admired that he kept coming to see me and was the only person who did, his presence wasn't as comforting as he thought it was and I really didn't want to talk to him about what I knew he was going to want to talk to me about.

"I've been less with it." I said, making sure to sound as bitter as I could. He seemed to catch on quickly, and asking me things when I was as good as drunk aside, he knew exactly when to ask questions, and exactly what I meant.

"Like I said," he said, "With it or not, you told me in confidentiality and that's the way it's gonna stay. So will you please look at me now?" my head turned automatically, "Thank you."

"Why are you trying to kiss up to me?" I asked him, folding my arms and trying to look pissed off whilst trying not to get my limbs caught up in the bedsheets, "You must have better things to do with your time than sit with a psychopath in an isolation room so what possible good could there be in this for you?"

His expression didn't change, I expected him to look hurt, that I would suggest such a thing, but he didn't, his eyes were a warm, dark brown, they seemed to just go straight through me without the slightest bit of effort, even though I was doing everything to block him out. Entranced, I became oculophilic, they were kind eyes, not a trace of malice to be seen, and yet, I knew all too well that he would be trying his hardest to make himself look at trustworthy as possible. That was always the way. Maybe he thought that if he got me back on the rails then it would make him look like a better teacher and gain him credit, and why should someone I don't know gain credit out of me?

"Why, you think I'm sitting here for the good of my health?"

"Maybe."

"You're right." He said, "I do have many, many many many better things to be doing right now, I've gotta make half a dozen school lunches, and my pile of ironing is taller than I am. So why do _you _think I'm here?"

"I'm sure this must put brownie points somewhere on your CV, at the very least a sentence about how good you are with difficult kids."

"I'm sorry you feel that way." He said, more sternly this time, "And if that's the attitude you take to people you don't even know it's no wonder you wind up at the end of every day feeling sorry for yourself."

"So why do all the people I trust seem to wander off with full pockets I wonder?" I asked him.

"I'm not like that."

I scoffed. "No they never are." I scowled, adjusting my position as I began to get pins and needles in my right foot. He didn't speak, and I rubbed my eyes, "One thing yesterday that I did mean..." I said, "I don't want anyone else to know, are we clear?"

"Not if you speak to me like that." He said sharply, his eyes harder now, "Anastasie, I don't care how informal our conversations are, or however young and inexperienced I may appear to be to you." His voice was raising now, "I am a professor and you are a pupil. Even if I don't expect your trust from day one I certainly do expect your respect. Are _we _clear?"

I tightened my arms and pushed my hands under my arms. "Yes." I grumbled.

He raised both eyebrows. "Yes?"

Oh come on! Give me a break! "Yes Professor Pendragon."

"Thank you." He said sweetly, and I wanted to be sick again. "And I meant what I said yesterday. I'll keep your secret."

Normally I would say thank you, but I was so put out by having been treated like a little child I decided that I wouldn't. I hadn't been intimidated by him originally, even though he was taller than me he certainly wasn't tall, in fact he was very short for a male vampyre, most of them towered over me like skyscrapers. I didn't think he was actually an intimidating person, it wasn't in his nature, but the fact that he wasn't that much taller than me had lulled me into a false sense of security I suppose. Although it wasn't something I usually looked for in the professors, I found that the extreme beauty of the other people around me made me feel even smaller, and while he was good-looking, he wasn't as sickeningly handsome as most of the vamps, it made him easier to talk to, until he made himself almost twice as scary just by raising his voice. A definite case of small-man-syndrome methinks, small in stature but makes up for it in personality. He shifted to slide his left leg over his right, he was fit and had a very good figure, it was a very awkward thought pattern, if he were younger and not a teacher he would have been the kind of guy I'd like. I laughed inwardly – how much younger was I thinking? If he got too much younger he'd be back in nappies. And if there's one thing I hated it was being treated like a child, I wasn't a child now, I was legally an adult, even if the vampyres didn't see it that way, and at the very least I wanted to be treated like one.

"Alright." He said, "If you want me to know more about you, understand you per say, let's have a chat." He relaxed in his chair, "So..." he said, "Where's home?"

I let my head loll on my shoulder. "Nowhere." I said.

"Where's nowhere?"

"Nowhere."

"So, what, did you just fall out of nothingness?" he joked.

"It's what my mother believes." I told him, but only because I had to, I had to get him back, I wasn't going to let him have the last laugh, "She believes that anything that does not exist on the Kingdom of God does not exist at all. Therefore, vampyres do not exist in the eyes of God."

"A very foolish principle." He said, "And if someone attacked her in the street I suppose she'd refuse to acknowledge their existence as well?"

I really wanted to laugh but I refused to. He can't tell me off the one second and try and make me laugh the next, no, he can't control the game like that.

"They told me your mother's a Jehovah's Witness." He said solemnly, "That must be awful."

"I was close to her once..." I said, squinting my eyes trying to recall it, "And then I realised all the things she hadn't done for me." I sniffed, "Like it matters, I'll never see her again."

"Huh?"

"I'm eighteen now, I don't have to go back there." I look at him dead on, "I'm not going back there." I said, "I think I'd kill myself for real if I had to."

"Well where will you go then?"

"I don't know." I said, "But I swear if anyone ever tries to make me go back there I'll..." I shook my head and bit my tongue, "I don't know..."

I thought he would argue this, push the subject, but he held his tongue again. "I'm sorry." He said, "Do you have any brothers and sisters?"

I'd had enough. "Why do you care?"

He inhaled and looked like he was holding in a huge sigh. Just as I was wondering how much patience he actually had, he was doing well to hold up this far. He didn't answer my question, and I think he had made a decision to ignore it altogether. His right hand, which was linked over his left wrist tightened a little and rubbed over the skin under his sleeve.

"I have six brothers and two sisters, all younger than me. Much younger actually." He said, like I had asked the question, he was just carrying on, "The oldest is twelve and the youngest is five. That's why I'm not on site during the daytime, I look after them. I'm kinda like Supernanny. That's why I always have bags under my eyes, because I've been working all night and running around after them all day and I've gotta look after the horse and if I get any sleep on top of that..." he shrugged, "I'm lucky. They don't play me up or anything, except the horse, but there's just so many of them."

Curiosity got the better of me. "What about your parents?" I said, making sure my voice was glum and as uninterested, even as sarcastic, as possible.

His eyes fell to his lap for a moment before re-meeting mine. "My parents are dead." He said sadly.

Shock struck me and immediately I felt eternally thick that I walked into that trap. "I'm so sorry." I said.

"You didn't know." He said, wetting his lip as if what he was about to tell me was hurting him, "They died last year..." his voice had taken on a softer tone, "It was my graduation day..." I wanted to cover my mouth with my hand but stopped myself, "They were in a coach crash on the M1. It was a hot day in June, and a HGV driver on over-time fell asleep at the wheel..." suddenly my ears were full of the sounds of car horns desperately sounding, of smashing glass and of crunching metal, of people screaming and tyres screeching, "He hit the crash barrier, the lorry jack-knifed and he turned over on his side, there was a pile-up of cars and the coach my family was travelling in got knocked into the hard shoulder, where it got hit by a car that was trying to swerve out of the path of a skidding car on its outside. It slammed right into them."

Suddenly I felt ill, my muscles tightened like I was sitting in that coach and I could see that car coming. "Oh my God..." I said.

"The kids were on the other side of the isle and didn't take half the impact." He said, his eyes were glazed over with the memory, almost like he was about to cry. His breathing slowed, I knew that feeling, the memory was still raw and painful when re-opened. "And there I was, sitting at the Madingley Road Park and Ride waiting for them."

"And so you look after your brothers and sisters all by yourself..." I said quietly. I felt worse, it put my life into perspective. It was pretty amazing actually, some of those kids were old enough to be his own children, if he wasn't a vampyre that is. Despite the horror of it, I was still wary, was he trying to get me to talk to him by opening up to me himself? I didn't not believe him, I didn't feel he was lying, but why tell this to a pupil you've barely met?

He nodded. "They're good kids, I'm lucky to have them."

There was a long silence in which I bit my lip and thought. In that moment where I felt such guilt for something that wasn't even my fault I thought that I would indulge him, just this once.

"I have a step-sister." I said, "She's much older than me. I don't know where she is now."

He blinked with the realisation that I was talking, answering something that he had asked me, even if it was a good five minutes too late, "Were you close to her?"

"Never had a chance to be." I said, blinking slowly, "Her name is Marie." I shook myself out of my little train of thought.

"So why 'Anastasie'?" he asked me, alive with a curiosity that was unfamiliar to me.

Why the sudden change of subject? "Pardon?"

"Why did you choose that name?"

I shrugged. "I liked it." I said simply, not able to find a better reason really, "It just felt right. But even now I feel it's not perfect."

"It's a pretty name." He said, "The French version after the Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia. I guess you know the story?"

"Yes." I said, "It's sad to know she did die in the end, so many people hoped she would live."

"There were rumours about her being Marked and surviving, but I guess the DNA evidence smashed through that one." He said.

"It used to be Anne."

"Hm?"

"My name, it used to be just Anne."

"It suits you." He said, " 'Anastasie' I mean."

I adjusted my position from under the covers. "So how did you choose your name?"

"Actually this has always been my name." He said.

"I'm guessing you're not related to King Arthur."

He looked sarcastic. "Unlikely."

Taking a glance down at his watch, his brow raised at the face. "I have to run." He said, "Oh and that reminds me..." he picked up the plastic bag that he had placed at the side of his chair when he came in, "These are for you."

He passed the bag into my hand and I dug into the contents with the other. Books? I pulled the first one out. School books?

"They're not all textbooks." He said reassuringly, "Some are just good novels, and I managed to sneak into the S&R department's library when Professor Gwenhwyfar wasn't looking."

We weren't supposed to use our affinities out of the company of the professor whose own most resembled them, in my case, Professor Gwenhwyfar, the famed White Enchantress herself. Why would Professor Pendragon encourage me to break the rules by teaching myself?

"Try not to blow up the school." He said, smiling over his shoulder as he made for the door. I think he expected to hear me thank him, and I supposed under normal circumstances I should have. I was stubborn though, and he was going to be the one to leave this conversation disgruntled, not me.

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

I'm not sure exactly what it is about recesses that I hate so much, seeing as every living moment that I have to spend in that stuffy courtroom I loathed with a vengeance, but there was something highly uncomfortable about the breaks where our different opinions seemed to come across before they were supposed to or before we wanted them to. I could already tell what people were thinking, and it annoyed me when people did not see things the same way I did. Was there something wrong with the way I thought? Were we all supposed to be blithering idiots? Spiridion's own thoughts were guarded, and despite his other rather lesser qualities, he was an intuitive vampyre, more powerful of mind than one first thought, and while he had never made any attempt to hide his blatant disregard for everyone and everything from anyone, these thoughts he was taking great care not to reveal to me. I had not had a chance to confront him yet, indeed he seemed to have been avoiding me, when I had thought that the whole point of this wild goose chase was for him to make my life as difficult as possible. I exhaled noisily as I watched the TV screen on the wall, it was one of those things like you see in banks, with the volume turned right down so as not to disturb people, but had big subtitles so you could figure out what they were saying. It was a weather report, bad, as was the norm in Hull, and so far it certainly was living up to its reputation as the gloomiest place on Earth. A couple of the other jurors, including Spiridion looked at me, and I noticed that it was because my phone was ringing. I ignored them and plucked the thing out of my bag and held it to my ear.

"Yianna speaking." I said, shifting into business mode even though I hadn't thought to look at the display to check who was calling.

"_Hi Yianna it's Oliver Pendragon."_

It could be worse. "Hello Oliver how are you?"

"_Not too bad, and yourself?"_

"I'll live I suppose." I said, eyeing up my surroundings again, "So what can I do for you?"

"_I just needed to have a quick chat about Anastasie Parisien."_

Not that girl again. I cradled my forehead, what had she done this time? "I really am sorry you've had to pick up the brunt for me as far as she's concerned this term Oliver, I really never expected her to try and top herself."

He sounded grim, even over the phone. _"No it's alright Yianna she's my responsibility too. I just need a quick word about her custody during half-term if that's possible?"_

I glanced around me, I'm not sure why. "I've got a minute, what's the problem?"

"_I spoke to her last night, and she doesn't want to go back to her mother."_

"Please tell me you're kidding."

"_That's putting it lightly. Not that I blame her."_

I had to admit, he had a point. "Well no." I said, sighing as my brain calculated what would be coming next, "And you're going to ask me what we're going to be doing with her I suppose?"

"_I've been doing some homework."_ He said_, "She turned eighteen in December, so legally she is entitled to request an alternative residence. Now, while we don't technically have to provide a residence for her, being the only party to whom she is a dependent, have to ensure her welfare." _

"Well she sure as Hell isn't going anywhere by herself." I said, "We can't risk her doing anything stupid again."

"_And if she's weak then she needs to stay in close proximity with at least one adult vampyre."_ He said.

"I see your problem." I said, "What the Hell are we going to do with her?"

"_Well firstly I went through the staff, Ellen and Aleron would gladly have her but they don't have time to be keeping an eye on her, as does Demeter, so they're out. The others are either abroad or out of the area."_

"Are you telling me that all of our staff run for the hills as soon as we break up?"

He was quiet for a split second. _"Yes."_

Oh great. "So that basically leaves you and me." I said, "Well you can't have her, you've got enough on your plate already Oliver."

"_You're not exactly around to watch her either."_ He said informatively, _"At the very least, I'm going to be around to watch the kids, and I've got eight already what's one more?"_ he said jokingly.

Was he offering to have her? I bit my lip, smelling the danger there. "The offer is very much appreciated Oliver..." I said, "But, from a professional point of view, I would far prefer it if Anastasie's guardian wasn't a young single male teacher." I knew what he must be thinking, "Don't take this the wrong way I know you'd never dream of it but people are going to talk and it's not good for you or her." I said, "It's best to stay clear of it altogether, these things get messy."

"_I completely understand."_ He said solemnly, _"But she can't stay where she is forever. I can ask around some friends, but I can tell you now, not one of them is going to want to take on a suicidal wreck."_ He said, "_Not without a considerable sum. Whoever it is, basically acts in loco parentis, despite her being eighteen because she's not Changed. If she does try again or if she rejects the Change then they are going to be liable. At the very least, a member of staff would be legally insured against Change Rejection."_

I massaged my eyebrows and sighed loudly. "So it's got to be one of us."

"_I understand and agree with your feelings Yianna, but I'm quite happy to have her. The Easter holidays are coming up and, to be perfectly honest..."_ he said, _"I need help. The Christmas break nearly killed me and I wasn't even working full-time then. I'll have her, for no cost, on the condition that she helps me with the kids for the duration of their holidays. I've got to go diurnal then anyway and she'll have to stay nocturnal, and..."_ he said, _"It might do her some good, take her mind off things, get her away from it all."_

"You mean kinda like rehab therapy?" I raised an eyebrow, "I don't know Oliver..."

This was risky, far riskier than he thought. I agreed with him that it would do her immense good to stay with him, but I had a load of legal implications to sort out. Simply a rumour of any funny goings-on and that would be the end of his career, like it had been Spiridion's, the girl was not easy, and then if she didn't respond and pull her weight, there would be no way of him t get rid of her then, he'd be worse off than before.

I sighed for the umptieth time. "If so, then neither of you can talk about it to anyone except other staff, and you'd have to take her well after the other students have cleared out."

"_Not a problem, besides, I don't think she'll be rushing to tell the other kids."_

Doubt tugged at my lips. "Hm..."

"_You sound like you need a drink." _He said sympathetically.

I snorted. "Oktoberfest would be nice."

"_How much longer are you going to be away?"_

"How long's a piece of string? My head is about to explode any minute now so they'll probably bring me back in a body bag just in time for the Symposium."

"_We'll get you a nice headstone reading 'Here lies Yianna, and she's bloody annoyed'." _

"By all means, go ahead, I don't anticipate being back before I hit old age anyway." I said, "What else is going on up there?"

"_Ellen's in hospital."_

"Well that's a start."

"_Trampled by the bull."_

I frowned. "Fantastic."

"_Everyone else is healthy physically, it's their sanity I can't guarantee." _

"Don't bother, I gave up after my first week." Looking around me again, I noticed that the short recess we had been granted to give the mother another chance to compose herself, again, was over, and the other jurors were filtering back into the corridor, "Oliver I'm gonna have to go, I'll catch up with you later."

"_Bye Yianna."_

"Bye."

* * *

_Spiridion_

* * *

I walked out of the court room that day with a smirk on my face. It was bloody cold, even for March, and my fingers were still frozen despite being buried deep in the pockets of my duffle coat. I could hear the click-clack of high heels behind me, and I had to smile. Why the sudden confidence on this particular day of all days? It could have been any woman's stilettos clacking up behind me, but it was Yianna's I was waiting for. Why was I so keen to be caught up to by a woman that would probably throw me into the river as soon as she got the chance? Well, I can't say that I didn't believe that she would, in fact, I was waiting for a quick tap on my shoulder, the muscle in my arm was actually jumping in anticipation of having to catch her fist from making sharp contact with my face. Then again, it's probably my balls I should be guarding. Face? Balls? Face? Balls? Hm...

Just in front of me, I was coming to a bridge crossing the river Hull, and its very own gang of delinquents hanging around by its corner, smoking God only know what. I made a mental note to cross the road. While I was also confident that none of them would stand a chance against me any day, public displays aren't my thing. I enjoy playing with people's heads as much as I enjoy stabbing them in the gullet, but these guys I really didn't have the energy for.

Watching the roaring traffic, I pressed the button on the nearest traffic lights and waited. Normally I didn't bother, why stop the traffic when you can just jog out when there's a gap? I remembered when I was a schoolboy in London, and crossing the road meant dodging horses and carriages as opposed to cars and cyclists, and still it surprised me how people nowadays were more keen to throw themselves in between cars when no one would ever throw themselves under a horse. And here I thought we'd come a long way since then.

"Thought you were going to get away from me did you?"

"My dear friend you had me under every impression that such a feat was impossible."

Yianna glared. "To consider me a friend is a vast presumption." She said.

"So may I presume you to be a stalker then?"

She looked so sour it almost made her look ugly. "Don't push your luck."

"Was there something, or are we simply to be splitting hairs?"

Her voice was lethal. "Vampyres face enough criticism for our beliefs in general without your rather helpful instalments of apostasy."

"You're referring to my taking an atheist oath."

"Is that not what 'apostasy' implies?"

"Well forgive me for wanting my own life outside of temple rituals."

"Is there something offensive about it? Is there? Because there's just something about the rest of vampyre-kind that you can't stomach!"

I wasn't paying attention anymore, instead choosing to look over her shoulder at that gang of yobs again. Some poor sod, and I'm not sure how one could be born with a brain so small as to accommodate such an action, had decided not to cross the road and try to walk straight past them. A kid really, probably not yet twenty, and certainly wouldn't get served if he walked into a pub dressed like that. Of course, what followed was highly predictable. They demanded his money or his life, the usual, and then the punches started raining. Pushing past Yianna's shoulder, I was gone. Her voice came from behind me like a Fury from Hell.

"_Where do you think you're going?_"

Although, I think she realised what I was doing, because she followed and eventually caught up with me just as I drew close to the group, making myself look as dangerous as possible. Oh yeah, not difficult. One lad in a white tracksuit glanced up and saw both Yianna and I.

"Shit!" I heard him say, his hands clamping down on the shoulders of the others what I can only describe as a herd warning. The kid covered his ears and head amongst the shouting that ensued, although, once he realised they were panicking, it seemed he had enough courage to try and take back his stuff. The same lad that saw me punched him in the face, and I could hear Yianna's gasp of horror from beside me as he and two others lifted that kid clean over the safety rail and let him plunge into the mucky subzero water below. Geez, whatever happened to just running like Hell in the other direction?

They scarpered as we ran to the bridge, looking frantically around for the kid. As I leant over the rail separating me from god knows how many tons of water and debris I felt I was leaning over the rail of a cruise ship and vomiting into the blue depths.

"Come on!" Yianna shouted, pulling off her coat and dropping it to the floor.

"Yianna what are you doing?"

Too late! With one smooth motion Yianna had launched herself over the safety rail and fell into a freefall dive down into the river. Shit shit shit what was wrong with throwing in a dingy? The water splashed as it made way for her and suddenly I could taste vomit in my mouth, my entire body shivered with a force so great that all the vague warmth my body had simply disappeared into nothing. My vision swam in those murky swirls, and my throat tightened uncontrollably. All I could see even when I closed my eyes was water water water... People were shouting all around me, running to lean over the rail running to look, some other men were shunning their coats and jumping in too, while others ran to fetch the life-rings... Shivering turned into tingling and I slowly lowered myself to the floor, sitting down with my back to the wall, the blood had to come back to my head soon...

I heard Yianna – Yianna was shouting my name from the river, each cry getting quieter and quieter as the current took her further away from the bridge, I couldn't get up and even if I could I don't think I could look her in the eye. Not now. I was now truly fearful of her. I was. I now knew what it was like to see her and quiver in your boots. Because as soon as she's out of that river, she's going to want to know why I couldn't jump in too.

* * *

**R&R!**


	8. Lucidity

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

**Me: Sorry this took so long, I've had a million things to deal with lately and this has suffered as a result, so bear with me, I'll get there eventually lol. **

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

_I was here again._

_I knew what was coming now. This dream had become lucid now, I knew I was dreaming but I couldn't control what I did, making a horrible pool of fear gather in my stomach. No... No no no no no I didn't want to face this pain again, emotional nor physical! Why did this keep happening to me? I wasn't that messed up in the head! Oh God... Inwardly I was sweating, my breathing hard and never enough, all I knew was panic! How could I get out of this? There was no way to stop the dream unless I woke up. Oh Christ if only _I _could move! If I had control! I felt so ill I knew if I did I'd be sick, this cold living room where my blood was about to spill on the carpet... Shit... Tears were already at my eyes – I had no idea how strange it was to be thinking two different thought patterns at once – those of the person whose eyes I saw through, whose heart I felt through, and my own, but my own were so clouded over by his that trying to break out of his thoughts was like throwing yourself against the wall of a padded cell. My tears burned my face, my entire body was shaking. My hands fumbled with the key in the lock of the blade's case – I had given up. I raised it above my head slowly, my arms steady. Oh no no no no no..._

" _Invitation only, grand farewells..."_

_Huh?_

"_Crash the best one, of the best ones, clear liquor and cloudy eyed, too early to say goodnight..."_

My phone...

"You have stolen my heart..."

I groaned in pain as my back collided hard with the wooden floorboards of my bedroom. My skin stinging, I quickly untangled the duvet from my legs and tried to find my phone.

_"You have stolen my heart..."_

Nothing like a bit of Dashboard Confessional to wake you up at... What time was it anyway? My eyes were red and blurry from the sleep, and I hissed, a reflex more than anything, as I had to crawl over the chink of sunlight breaking through my curtains to get to my phone, which was plugged into the charger at the mains near the door. Grabbing it, I turned it over and shut my eyes in preparation for the white glare from the screen. Rubbing my eyes, I looked more clearly at the caller ID. Chris? My second oldest younger brother. I pressed 'answer'.

"Hey Chris." I said, settling myself semi-comfortably on the floor.

"_Oliver, you've gotta come to school quick!"_

I flinched. "Has something happened?"

"_Ellie fell over in the playground and hit her head on the climbing frame! They're taking her to A&E!"_

I was awake now. "What? What happened? Is she okay?"

"_The school's been trying to get through to you for the past half hour! Can you come?"_

I sighed, half an hour? Was I that fast asleep? Of course the phone was in the kitchen but I hadn't ever slept through it before. "Course I can, Chris, I need you to tell them I'll meet them at A&E, can you do that for me?"

"_Sure Oliver."_

"Okay just hang on I'll be there as soon as I can!" I practically yelled at the phone as I danced around my room trying to drag some jeans on with one hand.

"_Hurry!"_

"I am! I'm coming!"

Oh Christ what had she done? I forgot about the dream completely, I needed to get to Ellie.

A&E was crowded as always, with people groaning and moaning and children crying with teatowels pressed to various parts of them. I couldn't see Ellie anywhere, and so headed for the main desk.

"Hi..." I said, "I'm looking for Eleanor Pendragon."

The girl at the desk looked at my Mark. "Are you family?"

"I'm her brother and her guardian." I said.

"If you'd like to go to the side door which is just to your right Gina will let you through."

A middle aged nurse behind the one sitting at the desk nodded and left. "Thank you." I said.

The door opened just as I got to it, and the middle-aged nurse greeted me. "Hi there!" she said cheerily, "It's Mr. Pendragon isn't it?"

"Uh- Yes." I said quickly, "I had a call from the school they said she hit her head."

"She's had three stitches in her forehead, it was quite a bash she gave herself, she was quite concussed when she arrived but the doctors have looked at her and she's fine."

We passed through a swinging door and into a paediatrics ward, everywhere was buzzing with the sound of children, crying, shouting, playing, and the voices of doctors on the telephones and anxious parents. Gina led me to a bed that had been curtained off from the rest of the ward, her hand pulling back at the green material. The moment I saw Ellie alive and moving I could finally breathe again. A young Asian nurse was chatting to her whilst gently cleaning the area of her forehead that she'd hit. Sure enough, three stitches, an ugly cut on the left side of her forehead, but she was okay.

"Ellie!" I said, leaning down to hug her. Her little arms curled around my neck, and somehow I knew everything was going to be alright.

"Oliver!" she said, the grin on her face making me want to burst out into laughter, "You're so late!"

And then I did laugh. "I'm here now..." I told her, "It's okay."

* * *

_Spiridion_

* * *

Did you really think, that after what had happened today, I was going to sit around and let Yianna crucify me in front of the city of Hull?

I don't.

Our accommodation was paid for by the council, and so, in a traditional Hull welcome, they had put us in a Travelodge, and, thank every god and goddess out there, had put Yianna in a different one to me. There wasn't a chance in Hell that I wanted a grilling from her now.

The guilt ate into me like an acid. That kid could well have been dragged under by the current and drowned. And Yianna just jumped in without a second thought, because it was the right thing to do. I have to admit, I had never thought she'd do that, and in not doing so camouflage my own reluctance. It just wasn't the kind of thing that she'd do, she was the type of person to follow the rules and throw in the safety-ring and dial 999, not jump in! And here she had managed to shame me without even speaking to me. Going to the cupboard, I pulled out a large bottle of blood-laced wine that I had brought with me, I had predicted that I might need it and if ever there was a time I did, it was now. I was still freezing, so I dragged my feet to the heating box and turned it up high. I didn't bother with a wine glass, swigging it from the bottle was enough, and unlike normal it did bloody nothing to relax me. Damn it!

I was just about to throw myself at an armchair when my doorbell rang. I would far rather have ignored that damn thing, and after about three minutes of the buzzer ringing around in my ears I decided to shut them up.

I opened the door with a face of steel. "What is it?" I rudely demanded.

I don't know how she had managed to get up here, maybe she had distracted the desk attendant with a fear or maybe bullied them into letting her up here and telling her my room number, but Yianna was here. She was still sopping wet from the river, the smell was bloody disgusting and hung around her like a miasma. Her hair lay in tousled clumps around her shoulders and her clothes, a thin woollen top and black trousers were mucky beneath a blue towel that looked like it had been given to her on her being pulled out of the river. Her slight frame was shivering uncontrollably but her face was just as rigid as mine.

She said nothing as she pushed past me into the room, and waited silently for me to shut the door.

"I don't know what in heaven's name is wrong with you..." she said, her voice icier than ever, "And to be honest, I don't much care. It seems it was a bloody good thing you left the House of Night."

"So, what? I'm a bad teacher?"

"That kid could have _died_!" she shrieked, "_You_ are a warrior vampyre you were the one most able to help him and you just stood and watched!" her hand flew to her forehead in her rage, "You can be an arse all you like disown your kind all you like but not when innocent people's lives are at stake!" she took on a happier, sicklier tone, "So you're going to put all your problems on the table, and you're going to put them on the table now otherwise I _will _wish you had never been born!"

I turned my back on her. "Save your threats, they bore me." I walked into the ensuite, grabbed the towel off the rail and came back, offering it to her with an extended arm.

"Vampyres can't get ill." She scoffed.

"No, but they can get cold."

She clenched her jaw tight to stop herself from shivering. "Is this just to get at me?" she asked, "Is that what it is?"

I exhaled as I leant my back against the wall. "No." I answered, "But there's nothing like killing two birds with one stone eh?"

"Is there something wrong with the way I run the school, speak, act, sit in the courtroom?"

"Nothing that has anything to do with me."

"Then what is it up your arsehole that is so interesting that makes you climb so far up it that you can see through the other end?"

"Would you have drawn a psionosphere?" I asked suddenly, I think it took her by surprise, knocked her off balance a little, she thought I was going to launch into an attack, "If you hadn't leapt headfirst into an icy river, that is."

"Sometimes they draw me into them, if the fear is strong enough." She said. Her voice was steady even though she was shaking beneath the towel that was wrapped around her shoulders.

"But then you know what my greatest fear is." I told her, lowering myself into the armchair and relaxed, smirking as my fingers grasped my chin.

She looked to be in thought for a moment. "Water?" she said, "So, you can't swim?"

I shook my head. "No, no I can swim." I said, "Sometimes I wish I couldn't."

"Why, because that might be a proper excuse?"

"Most likely."

She scoffed. "Oh, I suppose you have some medical impediment that prevents you from swimming do you? Or are you allergic to water like the Wicked Witch of the West?"

I swallowed. "Think Yianna." I said slowly, "This is something you've seen before."

"I don't think I've ever seen such a lack of care as you always seem to be demonstrating." She said, "You're pathetic." She shook under the towel again. I didn't even feel sorry for her. What a heartless bastard I was.

"Go and take a hot shower." I told her bluntly, looking up from my armchair, "You _are _cold and quite frankly I can't stand the smell."

I grinned sickly. She rolled her eyes with what was I'm sure as much effort as she could possibly put into it. "I give up." She said, pulling the towel from around her shoulder and letting it hit her leg as it fell, "I give up."

"Bathroom's through there." I pointed to the ensuite, she glared at my profusely, bloody woman trying to burn holes in me again... "Contrary to popular opinion Yianna, the 'vampyres can't get ill' thing, is a myth." I was doing an Angelina Jolie, "Why do you think we train our own doctors and nurses now? We aren't immune from every disease, we can even catch things that humans can't as a matter of fact, and believe it or not, we aren't untouchable and we aren't invincible. Don't make yourself ill because you're too proud to admit that your textbook might be wrong."

It was too late anyway. The woman had already made herself ill and it was clear by the redness appearing on her face and the way she was shaking. "Come here." I said, getting up and grabbing her by the arm.

"What the _Hell do _you think you're doing?" she shrieked as I pulled her towards the shower.

"You some bloody good for once." I growled, pushing her fully clad into the shower and turning it on.

"My fucking suit!" she shouted.

"Is wrecked anyway." I said, my arm twitching again in case she tried to hit me, but from the limpness with which she had responded to my dragging her here it was safe to say I was safe. She wiped the water out of her eyes, smearing her mascara in the process, and continued shaking.

"Sort yourself out." I said, "There's a dressing gown on the door and a towel on the radiator..." I can't believe I'm doing this, "I'll find you something to wear."

I closed the door behind me and left her be. As I crossed the carpet and reached for the phone, I discovered a new fear of mine. This one did not so much anger me as make me feel insanely guilty. In my earlier display of cowardice, she had been absolutely right.

* * *

_Lucy_

* * *

Has anyone ever had that feeling where you just wanna dunk someone's head in a vat of coffee?

This is a vague representation of what I feel like today.

I mean I'm happy that I'm getting to the point where I can point out mistakes, and that these mistakes aren't always my own, which makes me so happy I could do a little twirl right here if there was nobody looking, but seriously, some people weren't just behind the door when brains were given out, they were out the door, down the road and on a ferry to another frickin' continent! How to point this out to them without being rude? It does your head in after a while.

Ellen was due to go home today for the first time since she was trampled by the cow... bull... whatever. And the funny thing is, she doesn't smell of cow shit! I suppose there's a first time for everything, but given that this particular phenomenon is about as likely as the Virgin Mary working a day job in Amsterdam, we were all pretty impressed that we didn't have to wear pegs on our noses for two whole weeks!

I was on main desk again. Flipping through my copy of _OK!_ Magazine, I could hear the faint sound of the TV in the background. The waiting area had a large widescreen which played back adverts on sexually transmitted diseases and the pros and cons – mostly the cons – of anorexia, its purpose: to stop the patients from harassing the reception staff. And you'd be surprised how well it worked, but it did get boring after you heard it go through its first few cycles of spots. It didn't matter what cheesy celebrity story I read in this trash, I couldn't get the replaying slow-mo-ing image of Dr Sex being dipped in a vat of coffee. Actually, forget coffee, it's a vat of molten lava! Oh crap he's coming this way...

"Lucy?"

I sat on my magazine discreetly. "Yes?"

"A nurse from the Scarborough General Hospital is coming in in a few minutes to collect a metronidazole drip. Have it ready for them to collect please." He said, before walking off again. What the Hell?

I pulled on the string in the drugs room and the fuzzy light came on, blinking in my eyes as I headed to the drips cupboard. Did we even have metronidazole? It was an antibiotic, but I'd never seen any here. I looked at the numerous hundreds of shelves in front of me. Crap.

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

Ellie had to go back for one last MRI scan (those things were much quicker nowadays and definitely cheaper) before she could leave the hospital. It was getting on for five in the afternoon, and so I took full advantage of the wait by going to get a cup of coffee. It didn't take long to find the café, and soon enough I had sat myself down, with a polystyrene cup, and just watched the world go by for a few minutes. It was funny, it was something that I so seldom had time to do that now sitting here just watching people felt strange. My brain buzzed without cease 'you should be doing something' 'you should be doing something', and there was nothing under the Sun I could do to make it go away. I thought about that dream again, that one that I've had five nights in the past two weeks. It was extremely strange, but it certainly wasn't something I was going to let get in my way. I had work to do, and I was tired yes, but I was just going to have to be tired and suck it up like the rest of the world. I thought about Anastasie again too – was I mad to be welcoming her into my home like this? I felt a sense of calm come over me, I could trust her, I thought, and if I could be the one to put her back on the right track... I'd like to be able to do that for someone. The girl had no stability in her life whatsoever, nothing and no one to fall back on when the others got at her. She needed some hope back in her life, and I was sure that all was not lost. I smiled and sipped at my coffee. I didn't mind that I was tired, as long as I was doing what's right.

"Excuse me..."

I looked up from my coffee. Above me stood a gentleman doctor in his fifties, grey streaks starting to grow through his otherwise dark hair, his face was tired yet bright, and worn from all the emotion that the job carried along with it. He held his own coffee in his hand, along with a thick notes chart under the arm of his white labcoat.

"Aren't you Greg Pendragon's lad?"

Not something I hear every day. "You knew my dad?"

"I worked with your father for many years." He said, taking a seat opposite me, "It's, it's Oliver, isn't it?"

"Yeah." I said, taking a sip of my coffee. I wasn't sure if I liked this guy yet, the fact that he saw my Mark and still smiled was a good thing.

"Back from uni for a bit are you?"

"I'm finished there now." I said, feeling a little happiness at his surprise.

"Really? How time does fly! Your father would never stop telling us how his boy was off to Cambridge."

I laughed. "Bet he drove you all nuts."

"Oh he did." Said the doctor, "But we miss him just the same. You do look like him you know."

I nodded sadly. "I miss him too." I said, "And somehow, I feel like I've had a wake-up call into his life, with work and the kids."

He looked taken aback. "Good Lord Oliver you're not looking after those eight all by yourself are you?"

I nodded again. "Yep."

"That's too much for a young man like you."

"I'll be young for centuries; it's not much to ask for them to have a proper upbringing for a decade or so." I told him, drinking my coffee again. I wish that caffeine had the desired effect on vampyres, and the vague rush I had from the heat of each sip was as pathetic as what the caffeine was doing. "He always wanted me to be a doctor." I continued, "But no, I went my own way. Now I'm kinda wishing I had become a doctor. I could do with the six figure salary."

The doctor's face was so sympathetic it almost made me upset. "Your father was extremely proud of you." He said, "Not least for doing what you wanted to do."

* * *

_Lucy_

* * *

I actually found that crap!

I don't know how I did, but I did it!

Mwahahaha!

The little bag was sitting at my right hand side next to my mouse, as I scrolled through tomorrow's appointments with little enthusiasm. So when was this nurse getting here?

"Morning."

"Morning." I said, looking at the person standing in front of me. Wow, that was quick. Wait a minute... That's a guy. Wait a minute that's a frickin' human!

"I'm here to pick up the metronidazole drip?" he asked. Yes, I kid ye not, a male nurse. A murse! Hahahaha, a murse! A human! A murse! "Is there a problem?" he asked politely, and I profusely shook my head. He was dressed in the black vampyre nurse uniform, only the male version of, a watch pinned to his non-existent breast and a badge dangling from his tunic. Kenneth, it read. A male human vampyre nurse? Called Kenneth? What da fuck?

"Oh no, sure it's right here." I said, putting the bad onto the counter, "Can I get you to sign here please?" All drugs leaving the premises had to be signed for. He took the pen in his hand and signed.

"Lemme guess." He said, a smile on his face, "Never seen a murse before right?"

I blinked. "No!" I said, scoffing, "Absolutely not I think it's awful these days how people feel nursing isn't for men, it definitely is..."

"You mouthed it."

"Er-what now?"

He grinned. "When I asked if I could have the drip you mouthed 'a murse'." He repeated the action, you know, saying it but no sound coming out.

My jaw dropped. "No I did not!"

"Yes you did."

"I never did!"

"And why are you sitting on an _OK! _Magazine?"

"I get back trouble?"

He tensed his eyebrows and nodded as if to say 'yeah, okay, you freak'. "Anyway cheers for the drip." He said, handing me my pen back, "See you."

"Bye..."

I did not mouth that! How could he say that I mouthed that?

Jerk.

* * *

**R&R!**


	9. Drown

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

**Me: Another one! R&R!**

**I just realised, Anastasie's is the only appearance that I've really described, and I have a really clear picture of what these people look like in my head, but what about you guys? Some of their appearances and characters are based on people that I know, so I shan't be putting their names here, so have found some actors who look as close to them as possible. This is just what they look like btw, I know most of these are Americans and this is set in GB la-la-la-la. Here's what I think these characters look like – some of them haven't turned up in the plot yet.**

**Oliver – Cam Gigandet (with longer, slightly messed up hair. Oliver doesn't have any of Cam's bad-boy appeal so would be interesting to see Cam play him. He's one character that I haven't based on anyone and still haven't found the perfect actor.)**

**Anastasie – Evan Rachel Wood**

**Yianna – Nandita Das**

**Spiridion – Dermot Mulroney (but a little younger)**

**Demeter – Maria Eilberg (kinda randomly, not an actress, but on Team GBR for dressage. I dunno why but when I was writing the first bit with Demeter in I thought she'd kinda look something like Maria.)**

**Ellen – Rachel McAdams (without make-up)**

**Lucy – Emma Watson**

**Dr. Cilian – Zachary Quinto**

**Catríona – Mairead Nesbitt**

**Thanatos – Angelina Jolie**

**Lenobia – if I had to cast her, Amanda Seyfried, Bridie Carter, or Diane Krüger. **

* * *

_Ask her to do me this courtesy,_

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,_

_And ask for a like favour from me,_

_And then she'll be a true love of mine._

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

It was with great surprise that I found myself the next evening, walking into school - my first lesson began at ten pm but I still had to be there for registration – across the beach, only, once more, I might add, to be intercepted by a horse. Given that I probably smelled of horse anyway – I hadn't had time to go back to sleep when Ellie and I got home from the hospital and so I had used it to go and muck out the field for an hour or two, before it was time for yet another trek to school – I wasn't over-enthused at the prospect of smelling even worse for the rest of the day. So you can imagine my reaction when Demeter leaned down from her horse and said to me:

"Hi Oliver, Ellen wants to ask you a favour."

To say that I didn't smile was an understatement.

"What the Hell could she possibly want from me?"

Apart from my dignity?

"She needs a writer for their TB Test. Steve's only gone and done his back out hasn't he? So Ellen has to drive 'em, but it's gotta be done or DEFRA's gonna shut them up, and this was the only day the vet could do. Was just thinking that you've got two frees this morning."

But I was going to use those for sleeping!

I sighed. "How long does she need a writer for?"

"She's got about one hundred and eighty to do, so about two hours roughly."

"Oh Christ."

"Tell me about it, she wants me crushing 'em."

Demeter had a busy schedule too, and she was going, so I ought to, I suppose. "Fine." I said, "As long as I don't have to nose them."

And so I found myself, little enthused, standing in a farmyard, in waterproofs borrowed from Steve, Ellen's injured bloke, with a clip board in my hand and a cloud over my head. The vet, a tiny chap, shorter even than me, equally covered in waterproofs, a belt holding the tuberculin guns around his waist, rubber gloves on his hands. I've gotta say, if I was a cow, I'd run for the hills.

"Mornin' Adrian." Said Ellen as the vet climbed a gate and jumped into a pile of muck.

"How're you doing Ellen?" he asked.

"Not too bad, Not too bad." She said, "They're all 'ere, an' Ay nabbed myself a wri'err an' a crusherr."

"Let's have 'em then." He said, joining me at the left side of the crush. The crush was a contraption used to restrain cattle for examination, with a neck restraint which Demeter closed when a cow walked in, then Adrian cut some hair on the neck away, took the skin measurements, which I wrote down next to the cow's number, and injected them with the tuberculin. Then we let them go and went on to the next one. Ellen kept complaining about how whenever she wanted a vet out it had to be out of hours charges. I had originally thought that the conversation would never vary from the old farmer speak, although I was more entertained than I originally thought, due to the fact that Aleron had been persuaded to help Ellen drive them up the race into the crush, and had no such experience with cattle. There were moments where Demeter, Adrian and I just watched as they argued, and how he went slightly quiet when it was the bull's turn.

"Yew know 'ow many cows e's got ta cover next week? An' today e's done fif'y at leas'." She said, chuckled and slapping the bull's haunches.

Aleron narrowed his eyes. "Why don't you go ahead and ask him if it was all with the same old cow?"

There was a silence in which none of us dared laugh. "Ay'll show yew an old cow Ay will!" she said, her voice bouncing off the walls of the buildings.

Adrian laughed heartily as he refilled the tuberculin guns. "So what is it you do then Oliver?"

"I teach Fencing." I said.

"Oh yeah, there was a chap called Spiridion doing it before wasn't there?" he said.

"Yes, he resigned." I said.

"Somewhat unexpectedly." Demeter finished, closing the gate of the crush and opening the neck bars ready for the next one.

"Really?" asked Adrian.

She nodded in a way that just made you curious for gossip. "It was strange really." She said, "He'd been here for years."

"What happened?" asked the vet.

"Well..." she began, looking at us from under her eyelids as if to confirm a scandal, "There were various rumours. I think it was a case of him jumping before he was pushed."

"Yianna was going to fire him?" I asked.

"I think she would have done." She said, "They clashed on a lot of things but I think this time she didn't really have a choice."

She'd got my attention now. "Why?"

"He was very close to Anastasie Parisien." She said, opening the crush neck bars and shutting the gate at the front, "Too close for comfort."

My eyes bulged. "What?"

"He spent a lot of time with her, was quite fond of her. There were letters going between them apparently." She closed the crush on the next cow, "And when Yianna asked him to show her them he refused."

"God..."

"Hm. I'm not sure I believe it though." She said, "He's not like that. We all know him well enough to know he wouldn't lay a finger on a fledgling. But I think there were rumours going around the pupils and Yianna had to be seen to be doing something."

"And that is why I work with cows, not kids." Said Adrian as he clipped, "Bit weird though. Why did he write to her? If it was platonic he could have just shown her what he wrote and saved himself the trouble."

"She's in my tutee group now." I said, "And she doesn't seem like the type either."

"How's she getting on now?"

"She's doing alright, but had some trouble sorting out where she's going for Easter, she refused point blank to go back to her mother."

"So where's she going?"

"She's staying with me." I said, Demeter widened her eyes a little, "And now I see why Yianna was reluctant to let her."

"Yianna gave her to you?"

"I offered." I said, "I have eight kids to look after anyway, what's one more?"

"I'm surprised she let you." Said Demeter.

"Oh come on Dem you can't seriously think I'm gonna molest her as well do you?"

She laughed. "Nah, you're not like that."

I chuckled as Adrian called the next two numbers. No. I wasn't like that.

* * *

_Spiridion_

* * *

I ended up never calling a cab for Yianna to go back to her hotel. She was far too ill now, and as a result, I had spent the night sleeping in a chair because, like the gentleman I was, I had given her the bed. And I had a bloody huge crick in my neck to show for it. After a few hours, I had called a vampyre doctor from the hospital to look at her, who had diagnosed her with Hypothermia and the hotel staff had brought up as many hot water bottles as they could find to put under the bed with her. We had to keep her as warm as possible and give her lots of fluids. I had the heating on full whack, and I was sweating like a pig, but she was shivering still.

This had definitely not been the intention. She was here to learn about life, that following the book every time would get you into trouble, sometimes with the worst possible circumstances. Did I mean to teach her not to be a goody two-shoes? You could put it that way yes.

I had paid one of the cleaning girls to go back to Yianna's hotel and bring some things for her, pyjamas, clothes, her stuff in general. The doctor had said that she would be 'confused', now I had no idea what he meant for hours after he left, she was as coherent as she normally was, considering that I'd have given anything for her to just fall asleep and stop talking. God this woman just doesn't give up! I didn't realise what he meant until she had to get up to use the loo. As she tried to stand – she nearly fell over again, and as she stepped across the carpet to get to the ensuite she lost her balance a couple of times, nearly walking into the wall at one point. Christ she just had to go and jump into a bloody river didn't she?

I unbuttoned the top three buttons of my shirt and rolled up my sleeves it was so warm in here now, I had gone from being freezing to sweating in minutes, and she was still shivering.

"Look if it gets any warmer in here you're gonna get wrinkles."

She turned around to face me – she had spent the rest of the time deliberately turned away from me, her eyes still closed. "Why are you so afraid of water?" she asked me, her voice muffled by the blockage that surely must have plagued her nose, "What is it that stopped you from saving a life?"

I sighed, and scratched the side of my head. "It's a long story."

Her eyes were still closed, when she wasn't moving you might have thought she was actually sleeping. "Do I look like I'm going someplace?"

"I, er..." I rubbed my head again, "I, nearly drowned once."

"When?"

"It was the winter of 1721." I began, ""Before I was Marked, I was an Etonian. I was there with William Pitt the Elder, although he was two years younger than me. We had all broken up after the Michaelmas Half and I was at my parents' house in Wycombe Square in Kensington for Christmas, I had just turned sixteen at the time." I sighed, "I remember the dinner bell ringing one night, on the twenty-third of December, at eight thirty pm, as always. So I came downstairs – I remember the smell of roast goose – I walked into the dining room, stood behind my chair, and I noticed my mother was staring at me. 'What is that?' she spat at me, 'Is what we pay Eton College to teach you? Disgusting boy, go and wipe it off at once!'. I had no idea what she was talking about. I protested, and eventually she rang the bell for the butler, and I was taken away by my ear to a basin of extremely cold water and a scrubbing brush, where they proceeded to scrub me until my skin was raw. After about half an hour of torture, they pulled the plug on the water and left me, and I remember looking up into the mirror on the wall opposite, and seeing the empty crescent Mark on my forehead. I heard a howl from downstairs that was unmistakeably my mother's – if you think being Marked nowadays is bad, try it in the early eighteenth century."

"So how did you almost drown?"

I closed my eyes. "I was so frightened that I hid in my room for what seemed like hours, well into the early hours of the morning. My tracker was very late, then again he did have to come from Scarborough. I eventually went to bed, but I was awoken by someone opening my door. I didn't think anything of it until I felt myself being bundled into a sack. I shouted and screamed – at the time I thought I was being kidnapped - punches rained down on me to try and shut me up and eventually one of them hit me on the head, it didn't knock me out but it made me dizzy. Someone carried me down the stairs, outside and into a waiting carriage. It was extremely cold – whenever the carriage hit a rut in the road I whacked my head against something, I could hear voices talking, and I was sure I could hear my mother. So I started shouting and wriggling again, asking if she was alright, and had they got her as well, and there was no reply. So eventually the carriage came to a halt and they were heaving me outside again, and this time it was my mother that spoke, I knew it was..." I held my forehead in my hand and wiped my fingers over my eyebrows. I saw her open her eyes again and look at me. "And I just, remember this horror that filled me when I heard her talking to those men... How I was a complete and utter disgrace to the family, an Eton education and this is how he thanks us, how entirely and wholly disgusting it was." I paused, "She refused to have any connection whatsoever to a vampyre, it was social suicide."

"What then?" she asked quietly.

"And then..." I trailed, "I cried. Not even to this day, has anything ever hurt like that betrayal." I continued with my story, "I realised that whoever it was that was carrying me had dropped me, and so I braced myself for the contact with the ground, and I remember, counting the seconds until I hit the floor and I never did." I narrowed my eyes, squinting at the memory, "And, it felt like something was pulling me down. Dark water was pouring through the pores of the sack and I was going down fast... And I realised I was in the River Thames with a sack of rocks tied to my feet." Yianna was listening now, as pertly as she could, "I was so close to drowning I might as well have." I said, "My tracker saved me, apparently, although I don't remember it. All I remember is water filling my lungs, choking, trying to get out but not being able to."

"God..." she whispered.

"I came out of it much like you did, it took them fifteen minutes to resuscitate me, the flesh and muscles of my thorax were so frozen that they could do any chest compressions to resuscitate me, they had to dunk me in a vat of hot water, and then fifteen minutes to get me to breathe, several days to regain consciousness, and I was critically hypothermic for weeks."

"How the Hell did you survive that?"

"The drop in temperature means your body's mechanisms all slow down, the blood to the brain cools, and it sort of shuts itself down. I was so close to dying as made little difference."

"The difference was that you lived." She said.

"I begged her..." I said quietly, it more falling out of my mouth than being planned, "I begged her for mercy, her only son..." a trickle fell down my cheek, I blinked and wiped it away, "I haven't been able to so much as go swimming ever since." I said, "I start having panic attacks if I even try."

* * *

_Lucy_

* * *

I'm fed up of being made fun of this week, I really am! It's like being in a really, _really _bad fanfic! Like this morning when I knocked myself out because I accidentally injected myself with Torb that was meant for someone else, and this morning I walked around in a one-metre circle for about thirty seconds whilst trying to decide which side of the room I had left my pen on, and there was that time when I had a staring competition with a cat, but seriously, can't I have just one normal day where I don't make a prat of myself? God if that happened I'd do the Macarena to show my gratitude! Yeah, anyway...

"Lucy?"

I jerked – it was Ezriel, the Head Nurse. "Yeah?"

"Have you recovered from the Torb yet?"

"My head hurts a bit still." Like billy-oh!

"Well now you've successfully knocked yourself out for the rest of morning consults why don't you go and talk to Anastasie Parisien?"

"Ezriel, I, don't know if she's comfortable having people around."

Ezriel raised an eyebrow. "That girl in there is lonely. Being lonely won't help her start her life over." She said, oh crap I feel bad now, "You're young, go and talk about boy-bands or something. Take your _OK! _Mag, she might like to read it."

I went soft inside, Ezriel had guilted me into it and now it actually seemed like kinda a good idea. I'd been so busy with what was going on in my hectic schedule that I'd forgotten to think about her lifeless one. She was cooped up in that little room every day, no contact with other people, except Oliver, who'll come a couple of times a day if he can, but what kind of life is that for an eighteen year old girl? She must have been so lonely. I cringed. And so, I picked myself up and dragged my feet over to the isolation room.

"Hey..." I said, as I poked my head around the door, "How's you?"

"Can I have some ACP?" she asked me suddenly, her bold eyes serious in what they meant.

"Do you need some?"

She looked away for a moment. She asked for ACP a lot, more than normal people did. Not for any particular reason, and I don't think it's addictive, not to vamps at least, but it was like she preferred sleeping and sedation to real life. "I can't sleep." She said, "I keep trying but I just can't switch myself off."

"That's probably not the best way to go about it." I said, slightly freaked.

"It's like my brain is buzzing and I just, can't ignore it."

"That's how I feel on a Saturday morning."

She smiled and eventually laughed. "Are you always this funny?"

I pulled a face. "It wasn't a joke!"

Okay, so I admit, I was a little jealous of Anastasie. Not because of the whole suicide thing, oh crap that was insensitive, I didn't mean it like that, I meant I wish I could look as good as her when I was a psychological wreck. She had waist length wavy golden blonde hair, alright it was greasy and tangled, but still. But she was far far too thin. The hoodie and jeans she was wearing were way too baggy on her. If she would actually eat something, the guys might drool over her rather than spit over her.

She narrowed her eyes at me. "Why are you here?"

"I'm not gonna lie to ya, I was bored." I said, plopping myself down into the chair Oliver usually sat in, "Thought you might be too."

She wrapped her arms around her knees. "I am." She said.

"So you know how much longer before you can go back into dorms?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." She said, shifting her weight, "I want to get out of here."

"Yeah it's stuffy in here isn't it?"

"I mean I wanna get out of the school." She said, "I can't stand it here."

I sat myself cross-legged at the end of the bed. "So..." I said, "If you could be anywhere right now, I mean like anywhere in the world, where would you be?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"It was supposed to be intelligent."

As she looked at me right then, I felt like I was the fledgling and she was the vamp. I never had her down as reasonable at all, she'd only ever been a delusional kid to us before, and yet she acted and spoke like she was twenty years older than she was. "Hm..." she said, considering her answer, "I think I'd be in France."

"Why France?"

"I like France." She said, "My family is French, if you go back far enough. It's just a nicer place to be. A completely fresh start, where no one knows about your past and no one cares, you can be whoever you want to be and that's who you are."

Hm. Explains the French name. "I think I'd be in the Caribbean." I said, "Or a Greek island. I like Sun."

"What are you doing in this country then?"

"I wonder sometimes." I said, "So where in France did you live?" I had no idea about French geography; I was just asking to keep the conversation going.

"I've never lived there." She said, "I grew up in Bristol. My great-grandparents were from the Champagne Region though."

Ah well, at least I knew where that was. I actually can't believe how normal she seems – Oliver's done a great job. "I have no idea where that is but er..." I began, scratching my head, "Sounds pretty cool."

"Yeah." She said, "Maybe I'll go there one day."

"What do you wanna do?" I asked her, "Like when you get out of here?"

"I dunno." She said, "I kinda liked the idea of archaeology for a while, or history, but I want to know more about the history of vampyres, how we've evolved and stuff like that. I wanted to be considered for the IB programme, but er, that never happened."

I got it. Students that wanted to attend human universities had to gain the correct human qualifications for entry, so after the first year, where all you did was the traditional vamp subjects, those who wanted to could choose to take the International Baccalaureate, the A-level replacement, in the subjects they wanted, over three years so they still had time to do the vampy subjects at the same time, and then they after they Changed they could go to uni. Providing they got the right grades that is. But they had to prove themselves in a series of special exams to be considered for it.

"I did really wanna do it when I first arrived here." She continued, "And then..." she sighed and threw her hand in the air to demonstrate the fleetingness of the possibility, "I slowly started losing my mind."

"But why do you put up with it?" I asked, her, "How they treat you? Why do they do it?"

"It's me, not them." She said, "I seem to attract it like a magnet. It's always happened, it's like a vicious circle."

"Why?"

She scratched her head now. "I think I expect it, which doesn't ever help. And because I'm expecting it I don't trust people, so I'm quiet and by myself and kids like me just ask for it."

"But it's not fair."

"Life isn't fair."

Is that all she had to say? 'Life isn't fair'? I think I was gawping but I was so shocked I wasn't sure.

"Sometimes you need to make it fair." I said.

"Me and whose army?" she said, "People just think I'm weird."

"I don't think you're weird." I said, if I'd said it earlier on I'd probably have been lying, but I actually don't think that anymore, she's just a bit troubled, and actually not even that weird at all, "And Professor Pendragon doesn't think so either."

"I guess not..." she trailed.

"He was a Crep when I was in Firsts." I told her, "He's a nice guy, always has been. He always wanted to teach, even before he left." I caught her attention as I recalled my first year, "I remember once, before he left, the Creps had just had their careers fair, and I overheard Aleron talking to Spiridion about him. Aleron thought that with his intelligence he should be aiming much higher."

"He's tired." She said, "He's got all those kids to look after and it's taking its toll on him."

"I think he's happy though." She said, "Whenever I see him he's got dark circles under his eyes and looks like he's ready to drop down dead, but he's always smiling."

"Hm." She nodded, but it was as if she doubted me, Why was that? "For how much longer," she said, her eyes gazing out of the window, "is yet to be seen."

* * *

**R&R!**


	10. Exceptional Circumstances

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

**Me: Here's another one! **

* * *

_27__th__ March, 2157_

* * *

_Anastasie_

I had finished packing my suitcase now. And if you were wondering if I was going to run away or something silly like that, I'm sorry to disappoint. I zipped up my hoodie and slipped my phone into the pocket on the front. I'd had enough of silly things in my life, and I had finally realised that if I didn't make something of it now, then I would be stuck with this image for the rest of it. Becoming a vampyre was about new beginnings, a fresh sheet. I'd failed to do that in my first year here, despite the change of name, which, unlike I thought it would, did not constitute a change of identity. Anne Yates to Anastasie Parisien, and three years down the line I was exactly the same person. "Parisien" was the name of my ancestors that came here from France, and 'Anastasie', as you can see, is the French variant of 'Anastasia'. I had thought of naming myself Anastasia, after the Russian Grand Duchess, but the name was too grand, it was too perfect, too regal for me. If I had given myself that name, I would have spent my life wondering whether or not I could live up to it or not. The French variant, well it was a little bit of what I thought might be home, and the real Anastasia was known by the French variant of her name, as a pet name. It was a little humbler than Anastasia, which I liked, but sometimes I wondered if all I would ever be was a French variant.

I was still waiting. Finally, we had broken up for the Easter holidays, and all of the other fledglings had long departed for their homes. Me, I was going nowhere near mine. I felt a rush of relief flow through me as I knew I would never have to set foot in that Jehovah-loving hellhole again, but at the same time, I felt a rush of dread – what was I going to do now? I had no money to pay bills, nowhere to go even if I did, and no one to take me in. Professor Pendragon had let me stay with him for now, but what about summer, and October half term, and the dreaded six week winter holidays – fledglings had their 'summer' holidays in the winter, because they had to be nocturnal, and the days in winter were longer, so it was safer for them to be away from the House of Night. So the summer holidays consisted of another three weeks, like those you would have over Christmas, and there were strict limits as to what you could and couldn't do, with the short days and all.

"Hi Anastasie."

I looked up from my thoughts, to see Professor Pendragon approaching. Once again, he looked cheerful, but impossibly tired. "Sir." I nodded, acknowledging him.

"All packed?"

"Uh, yep. Just that case."

"You travel light."

"I'm only going for three weeks."

He smiled. "Come on, car's in the car park. It's only like a ten minute drive, I usually walk but I don't wanna lug that thing across the beach."

It really was a ten minute drive, I had no idea that he lived so close. Talk about convenient. It felt really surreal pulling up into a farm driveway – I had been a city girl all my life, I felt ashamed to see that I'd never seen a cow in real life, apart from the Utterly Butterly and Crusha TV adverts. I'd seen police horses, but that was it. I was used to central Bristol, and this was another world entirely. It was a farmhouse, but without the farm, on three levels, redbrick, but within the bricks were dark brown beams, like an original Elizabethan house but with redbrick instead of whitewash. There was a stable building that was visible from the back, and a big garden. Chickens scattered as he parked the car outside and pulled on the handbrake – I was sure that they shouldn't just be loose like that, what if a fox or something got them?

Stepping inside the house was even more surreal. It was nothing like I imagined it to be, it was, in fact, completely normal. He put my suitcase down in the hall.

"Right." He said showing me to a doorway on our right, "This is the kitchen." I blinked – it was huge, large tiles on the floor, a green Aga at the far end, everything was old and wooden, it was like stepping two hundred years into the past. "Help yourself to anything out of the cupboards and the fridge." He said, walking to show me where to find them, "Erm, plates and bowls down here, cutlery here, glasses and mugs up here, we have juice, squash, milk, spare stuff is in the bottle rack, there's teabags and stuff in this cupboard here, and that's about it for in here." He said, coming back out again and walking down the hall, beckoning for me to follow, "Living room here, that's the pantry, you can put your coat in there, utility room, washing machine, tumble dryer, and cleaning stuff in here..." we went up the stairs, "On the right's James' room, Chris and Charlie share that one there, bathroom's that one, Daniel, Eric and Alex are in there and Fran and Ellie are at the end of the hall." He led me up another flight of stairs to more rooms, "This is my room." He pointed to the one door, "You'll be in here." He said, opening another door and taking my suitcase in for me, "Sorry it's kinda small, it was a nursery from when we were all little."

"Small is good." I said, it was really cosy actually, "Nice view." It was, a sea view.

"It can get a bit cold up here." He said, "So there's an airing cupboard on the left outside here, there are spare blankets and things in there. The whole house has been shuttered down, so as long as you don't open the front door you should be able to be around in the daylight hours." He looked at his watch, "Speaking of daylight hours..." he said, beckoning me to follow him back downstairs again. Leaning on the banister, he took a deep breath, and I knew he was going to shout. "Come on everybody! Up!"

I followed him back downstairs where he proceeded to lift a pile of plates and bowls from the cupboard. "Early for them yet isn't it?" I asked him, getting some cutlery out of the drawer.

"Not when there are two different school runs." He said, "James hops on a bus for his school, I have to do two journeys with the others, they won't fit in the car."

I thought since he had so much to do that I'd better start helping. "Cup of tea?" I asked, re-filling the kettle, replacing it on the stand and flicking the switch down.

"Please." He said, "Plus three."

"How do they take it?"

"All milky, with one sugar."

I was just pouring tea as a young lad of about twelve with sandy blonde hair walked in, school uniform just about buttoned correctly, minus tie. He scuffed his socked feet across the floor. His eyes widened when he saw me, I think the little grains of sleep actually fell from them as he stared.

"Morning Oliver." He said.

"Alright James?"

"Who's that?" he asked, "Is she your girlfriend?"

Oliver nearly spat out his tea. I had to chuckle. When he regained his composure he gave the boy an extremely withering look. "No." He said, "This is Anastasie, she's staying with us for Easter, I told you on Tuesday remember?"

"You did?" he asked, wiping his eyes.

"Yeah, you were watching Britain's Got Talent." He said. The boy looked at him blankly, and he rolled his eyes, "Which is probably why you weren't listening." He continued, "And I'm much too old and decrepit for her."

A line of even younger children filed into the room and took their places at the table, continually asking who I was and if I was his girlfriend.

"Anastasie, may I introduce my travelling circus, travelling circus, Anastasie Parisien." A chorus of 'heys' and 'hi's erupted from the table, he went around the table and tapped each one on the head in turn, "This is James, Chris, Charlie, Daniel, Eric, Alex, Francesca and Eleanor."

I didn't like eating much. In fact when I was at school I always ate as little as possible, at least the taunts that I was fat could never start then. I hated drinking blood-laced wine even more, but food made me feel ill, as if I had a panic attack I would vomit it all back up again anyway, what was the point? It had got to the point where the sight of food made me feel ill, not because I actually thought I was fat, I was thin, but I hated being sick so much, I would do anything to stop it happening. Can't be sick if there's nothing to bring up. So when he presented me with cereal, toast, various marmalades and jams, my stomach churned.

He must have noticed my expression as he gave me this food, and frowned sympathetically. "Have some yoghurt." He said, grabbing me a pot from the fridge, "It soothes the stomach."

I took the pot from him gingerly and peeled the lid off. I shouldn't not eat anything in front of the kids, I kept telling myself. I took the tip of a spoonful at a time, waiting silently for the nausea to build at the sudden intake of calories. It did come, but slowly, and not fully. I managed that and my cup of tea before I had to say 'enough', but the fact that I could eat something and not feel ill afterwards gave me a little tingling of satisfaction. I sipped the tea very slowly, so that it looked like I was still going until the kids had finished their breakfast.

"Alright everyone have you got your bags?" he asked them, "Homework, books, lunch?"

Some had, some hadn't and made quick breaks for their rooms to go and get what they had forgotten. The oldest boy, James, I think, I dunno I can't remember all these names but I think it was James, got up from the table.

"I gotta get the bus." He said, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl, "See you later!"

"See you James." Said Professor Pendragon, "Right, all of you, bags in the car!"

There was a scuffle of chair legs against the floor and of feet pattering out and into the hall, the little voices following them. "Thank you for the breakfast sir."

"You may call me Oliver, while you're here." He said, smiling briefly before walking off towards the hallway. I was glad none of the kids heard, or I'd never hear the end of it.

So, Oliver it is then.

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

Still I was here. Still this was going on, and on, and on, and on. Was there no limit to human decency? Apparently there wasn't, as I had discovered these past few weeks.

Today, we were listening to the CAFCAS reports, the information given in the interviews with the children. The three children were present, but were not called upon to speak, as that was considered unfair. I looked at the three. The very same three that I had seen in the psionosphere weeks before, two younger ones, a boy and a girl, around seven or eight, and the older boy, who was around ten. The younger two looked at their laps silently, while the older boy twisted a rubber band around and around in his hand like you would a stress ball, the fear in his eyes was paramount. When I drew that psionosphere, I had originally thought that the fears I was seeing belonged to that wretched woman, but were they after all? They could very well of been his. And now, there was more fear that I could sense here, and it didn't belong to either of the defendants, it belonged to Spiridion.

I hadn't spoken to Spiridion recently, in fact I don't think I've said much to him since being ill, I don't think even if I wasn't ill I'd have been able to answer his confession properly. You could see on his face that he felt strongly about this case, you always could, but before he told me about his phobia of water, I never understood the significance. This stemmed from being betrayed by someone who should have loved you most, something that was happening right before his very eyes, and something that he was powerless to stop. Come to think of it, his lack of faith in any sort of deity, Nyx or any other, could probably be explained by this as well. I refocused onto the trial and the endlessly dull lawyers – it still didn't make it right.

The solicitor employed by the father was talking. He was a sweaty, balding middle-aged man by the name of Geoffrey Edwards, and when I first laid eyes on him I was rather reminded of the lawyer character in that program 'Scrubs', but he only had to open his mouth and suddenly he was brilliant, witty and clever, he was someone who, I imagined, didn't often not get his way.

"So why is it, I wonder, that the two younger children, Peter and Mia, have provided CAFCAS with individual statements that are almost identical word for word, and that the oldest, Toby, has provided details that do not correlate with those of his brother and sister?" he said.

The other solicitor spoke. He was a plump Asian man, and wore a Sikh turban on his head that kept falling down around his eyes whenever he so much as tilted it point four-seven of a degree forwards. His name was Rafael Saheed, a solicitor apparently widely known in London for claiming justice for minorities. "Objection! Truth is not always to be gleamed from CAFCAS reports, children can be told what to say by either party."

"The opposition has just proven my point, your Honour, clearly these reports are not true reflections of the situation, so which of the defendants has told the children, either Toby or Peter and Mia to lie to CAFCAS? And which of the defendants, your Honour, has provided the children with a word for word story? With a mother that doesn't work and a father often working twelve hour days, is it not easy to see which of the defendants the children are most influenced by?"

"Two children with an identical upbringing could easily provide two almost identical reports."

The first lawyer pulled a face. "With identical phrases?"

"Quite possibly!"

"So why were there not three identical reports then?" he asked, "Hm? Why should Toby be so estranged from his brother and sister?"

"Because she treats our dogs better than she treats him!"

It had been the father that spoke, his remark more disgusted than passionate. "A 'fookin fat bastard' she calls him!"

"Mr. Evans please sit down." Said the judge, "Mr. Edwards, please continue."

"'I won't live with her', reads the report of Toby's interview." Said the solicitor flatly, "'I'll run away if you make me live with her'."

Everyone let out a series of gasps and whispers and suddenly we were all looking at the three children sitting with their nanny in the audience, the oldest boy, Toby, was staring at his lap, like he was trying is hardest to shrink into the woodwork he was sitting on. Ice cold fear washed over me just like the water had when I had jumped into the river. He was afraid of her, he was afraid of what she would do to him if he told the truth, enough so almost to make him lie, and for the majority of this session, he had been regretting ever disobeying her and saying what he wanted, and now he regretted it even more. His mind was racing – why couldn't he have just said what she wanted and made life easier for himself? Because he was afraid to go back home with her now. I frowned.

"Are those the words of a content child, Mr Saheed?" he asked, "I think not."

"Which of these three children does the court consider to be easier to influence?" Mr. Saheed pushed his turban out of his face, "Are the two youngest children capable of lying in a situation that they do not understand and would they understand such a request made by either defendant?"

"There is nothing complicated about such a demand, Mr. Saheed, especially not when accompanied with suitable leverage."

"And on that note Mr. Edwards, would it not be sensible to not place the child in question with the parent not to have made such a request? And would it not also be sensible, to place a ten year old with the parent who is not working long days, who in fact has proven that he has no time for the children in his schedule? Will you condemn a child to a life with only one suitable parent, or with no parents at all?"

I frowned even more, not quite sure if I believed my ears or not. The custody of the children was still not written in stone, but I remembered what Spiridion had told me a long time ago: The mother always, but always gets custody of the children, except in exceptional circumstances.

And as I sat there I wondered what idiot under the Sun might not consider these exceptional circumstances?

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

I went to bed that day absolutely knackered. After a tour of the rest of the garden, and an introduction to his horse - that he had taken on after his mother died, which, by the way, was expecting a foal in July, four months from now – I went up to the room that was to be mine, and unpacked my things. I hadn't brought much with me, I didn't own much, a few clothes, my books, some holiday assignments, so it didn't take me long to get everything sorted, but when I was done, I completely crashed. PJs on, and I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. I did wake again though, and turning over in my bed, which was much softer and warmer than the one at school, saw that it was one o' seven in the afternoon, and I needed the loo. Just as I crept upstairs, thinking that Oliver had probably already gone to bed and not wanting to wake him, I heard footsteps coming up the first set of stairs. Quickly stepping back inside my room, I closed the door all but to and watched through the crack between the hinge-side of the door and the wall as Oliver climbed up the stairs, using his hand on the banister to heave himself up, his feet dragging on the floor. His eyes were darker than I had ever seen them before, his entire face was weary. Was he ill? My eyes widened as he lost his balance several times on his way up their stairs and across the landing, it was strange – he was stopping for a second, standing up straight, and then his eye lids dropped and his knees buckled, and all this happened in the space of two seconds, and as soon as it happened it was like it shocked up awake again, and he would recover, never really having fallen, and it merely appeared like he was losing his balance.

I had seen this before. My mum does this. She gets up at stupid times of the night to pray, and it completely messed up her sleep patterns, eventually the doctors diagnosed her with hyposomnia. The more she stayed up, the tired she got, and then she started having semi-collapsing episodes, just like Oliver was now. It's not narcolepsy – narcolepsy is defined as going from full alertness to doosh, asleep in your food, this was something different. What happens is, your body needs a minimum amount of REM – that's 'rapid eye movement' sleep, the deeper sleep phase – sleep per twenty-four hours. You can go for a few days without getting enough, but if you go for too long and don't get enough, when you doze while awake, you start to slip into the REM sleep phase, and your body can't stand in the REM phase, so you collapse, but most people realise they are doing and shock themselves out of it. I also knew that sleep deprivation had to be extreme for this to occur. He almost fell into the door as he pressed down on the handle to his room, threw it open, and collapsed onto the bed flat out.

Quietly, I crept out of my room and into his, trying not to make the floorboards creak, even though that was silly, because there was no one else in the house.

"Oliver?" I said as I went to his side and inspected him, "Oliver are you okay?"

No answer. His breathing was deep and relaxed, his eyes closed tight. He was fast asleep.

As I looked up at the clock and the wall, now one o' nine, and given that he said he had to pick up the kids from school at half three, it was then that I realised something about Oliver's life.

He was exhausted. I always thought he looked cheerful but tired, and once he had done all their washing, ironing, taken care of the house, and the horse, taken them to school, he would have only two or three hours to sleep before having to pick them up again. He was doing everything for them, everything for me, and suffering as a price. As I stood there, just watching him get a tiny percentage of the sleep he so deserved, I felt so ashamed. He did everything for them in the daytime, and worked at night, and caught what sleep he could when he could. It was so incredible and yet so awful at the same time.

From then on, I knew I had to make things change.


	11. Gloucester Road

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

**Me: :)**

* * *

_Have you been to Scarborough Fair? _

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, _

_Remember me from one who lives there, _

_For he once was a true love of mine._

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

My pillow felt especially good this morning. Not really sure why, as I was pretty attached to my pillow at the best of times, but this afternoon was the first in a long time that I actually felt vaguely refreshed after sleep. Even after my few years as a vampyre, I still looked for the crack in my curtains to show my how bright it was, and therefore what time it was roughly, and then I realised that my window was shuttered down, and so it was completely dark all the time. I rolled over and looked for my alarm clock. Wiping my eyes so that I could look into the bright green light of the clock display, I turned the thing around so I could see it properly.

_Oh fuck no..._

_Six thirty pm?_

I threw the duvet off me and realised that I still had yesterday's clothes on – how the _fuck _did I sleep through my alarm clock? I never did it, even when I felt like death! _And I slept until six fucking thirty?_ _Shit shit shit shit shit_!

Had the kids even been to school today? Had they eaten? Had anyone fed the fucking horse?

I took the stairs six at a time and flung myself into the kitchen, and suddenly I was face to face with Anastasie, fully dressed in a striped shirt and jeans, alert, tidy, long hair tied up in a ponytail, an apron loosely tied around her waist.

"Anastasie!" I almost yelled, "Why didn't you wake me up?"

"I picked them all up from school." She said, "Dinner's just in the oven."

I closed my mouth as thought struck me like a slap around the face. First of all, it took me a few seconds to realise that my car had blacked out windows, so she would have been able to drive in the daylight if she covered up between the house and the car, and then it also struck me that she wasn't insured on my car. I would have to talk to her about that later.

I looked around, almost like I was looking for hairs out of place. Everything was quiet, the kids were sitting around the kitchen table, some had homework out, some of the younger ones who didn't have any homework were sitting in front of the TV. I could smell something nice cooking, and finally I could relax. I grasped the side of my head – what was wrong with me to oversleep like that? "Er, thanks." I said, "Thank you." I had another flash thought, "Did you feed the horse?"

I always left the feed ready the morning before so that it saved time for me of an evening, and hay and water and mucking out wasn't rocket science.

"She's fine." She said, "I gave her the food you left out and James helped me loads."

I sighed internally. "You've done a great job Anastasie but, why didn't you wake me?"

She looked sheepish for a moment. "Well..." she said, twisting her fingers around her hands, "I, er, I kinda, turned your alarm clock off."

What? "What?"

She walked forward out of the kitchen and into the hall, pushing the door, which had about a million coats on it, to. She turned to face me. "Um..." she said, "Oliver, I saw you yesterday, when you came upstairs – you were nearly collapsing..."

I rolled my eyes at her like a severely and genuinely disappointed parent. "Anastasie..." I moaned.

"I know I know but you were so tired..."

"Anastasie!" I said, "You, can't just muck around like that!"

"I didn't mean..."

"I don't need any more people thinking that I can't handle all of this." I said sternly, throwing my hands in the air, "Because I can. Please don't do it again."

I pushed the door back and kicked the doorstop against it, and walked back into the kitchen, trying desperately to calm myself down after apparently getting worked up over nothing. My stomach grumbled violently, and I realised how hungry I was. I closed my eyes for a second, before going to sit down at the kitchen table, trying not to let her or the kids see that I did it because I thought I might fall any second. My throat burned – food alone wouldn't give me the strength I needed.

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

I received a letter that morning. I had decided that I was going to travel back to Scarborough today, instead of yesterday, when the trial ended. We weren't allowed to know the outcome of the trial at the time, we just had to make our votes and leave. As I sat in my pyjamas, coffee in hand, and read the letter, I sighed. There were four of us that had made our thoughts quite clear, even to each other, myself, Spiridion, Sandra the dragon in Dragon's Den, and Adrian, the vet. The result was four against eight. I could come to my own conclusions. The children stayed with the mother, and the father gave 75% of his salary to her. When I thought of that vile woman, that evil _cow _I realised just how deeply wrong some things in this world are. The mother gets custody of the children, because the mother is always the victim.

Spiridion's phone, whenever I rang it, always went straight to answer phone, so when I rang it and prepared to leave a message, I was surprised when he picked it up.

"_Hello?"_

"Spiridion?"

His enthusiasm was shocking. _"Yianna."_ He said dryly, _"What is it?"_

"She won." Was all I could say, my throat dry.

"_I know." _He said matter-of-factly.

"What are we gonna do?"

He laughed sarcastically. _"What are _we _going to do? Yianna? We? There is nothing to be done."_

Even though I knew he was right, I couldn't help but want to throw my phone at the floor. "That's it? That's all you're gonna say?"

"_And you wondered why I took an Atheist Oath."_

"What?"

"_You're slow today."_ Came the snide remark.

"One lost court case isn't a reason to give up on Nyx Spiridion."

He laughed merrily. _"Oh isn't it?" _he said, _"I would have thought it was more than enough." _

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

Later on I found Anastasie sitting in the living room, after the kids had gone to bed, cup of tea in hand, her knees curled up in front of her and covered by one of the blankets we kept draped over the backs of the sofas. I went and sat down in the armchair nearest the sofa she was on – I was fairly sure I owed her an apology.

"You cold?" I asked. Ask a stupid question – the girl was thin that she had nothing to insulate her, even though it wasn't that cold in here.

"A bit." She said, sipping her tea. She was tired now. "How do you do this every day?"

"I'm used to it." I said, "Hey um..." I began, "I just wanted to apologise, for being sharp with you earlier."

"Don't have to apologise." She said, looking at the dead fireplace.

"Since my parents died..." my words stuck whenever I said that, I couldn't help the pause, "And I've been taking care of them, people look at me and shake their heads, and they don't believe that I can do it on my own." I said, and finally she looked at me, "And it happens so much, even now, and it makes me so fed up, that, I just have to prove these people wrong." I sighed, "I'm sorry, you didn't know."

"Was just trying to let you get a bit of rest." She said, "If we can get something sorted, then we can share the work and we can both get rest."

"Hm..." I nodded, "But I will always be fatigued, to an extent. It's just something I've gotta live with for now."

"Why's that?"

"I'm an adult vampyre Anastasie. Doesn't matter how much food I eat."

"You need blood."

"I need blood to be at full strength." I explained to her, "And drinking blood means having a significant other."

"And you don't have time for a significant other." She finished my point for me. I justified it with a nod. "The House had donors, doesn't it?"

I knew what she meant – she meant live human donors. "I uh, I don't like using them. I have very little respect for people who are literally willing to sell themselves to us."

"Well maybe you'll have time for a significant other now." She said, "I'll babysit or something, you can, go out on the town!" she joked.

I laughed. "Thanks!" I said,

She smiled. "Just because you're basically a parent doesn't mean you should be lonely."

"I'm not lonely." I smiled back, "Just weak. I'll live." There was a pause, "Anastasie, I want to be a parent, but I never will be." I said, "And neither will you."

The thought seemed to hit her softly. "I hadn't even thought about having kids." She said quietly.

"I never did." I told her, "Until I became one by default." It was a strange feeling, talking about this, "But now that I am..." I paused for breath, "I've never been happier."

She looked at me with a curious expression. "Really?"

"I've always liked kids." I said, smiling to myself, "It's why I wanted to become a teacher. But, like you, I never thought about having kids of my own, even if I were still human I'd still be too young to even be starting think about it so it never crossed my mind. And then, when I started looking after my brothers and sisters, I started wondering if my own kids would be like them." I said, "And then I realised what I was..." I sighed, "A vampyre. And sterile."

"Why are we sterile?"

"Pff, ask Ameliya."

"I never liked Vamp Anatomy." She said, "I don't know why I was sifted into that class in the first place. Guess I should pay more attention to it."

"It's not something you ever think about..." I said, "Because for humans it goes without saying, 'I'll have kids one day', and then you realise that it's one more bit of normality gone from your life. It's hardwired into humans that they have to reproduce and it's a bit of hardwiring that you never lose even when you become a vampyre."

There was a pause again. "You really wanna be a dad don't you?" she said gently, her voice soft.

I looked down at my lap. "Yeah."

She smiled at me. "That's great."

"Huh?"

She blinked, her lips tense like she was trying to stop herself from crying. "My dad never wanted to know me..." she said, sniffing, "When I see people like you and what you do for your brothers and sisters I see that there are good fathers in the world."

Looking at her almost made me want to cry. Here was a girl whose parents didn't want her, whose life was cold and bleak, and all she needed to flourish was a little care. "I'm sorry..." I said, "You deserved better."

She nodded, avoiding my eye-contact. "I know." She said, "I know."

"Don't worry about me." I said, "I'm happy. I don't care how hard I have to work, how tired I have to be, I'm happier now than I've ever been in my life."

A tear dropped from the corner of her eye and she wiped it on her sleeve before she thought I would see it. "Okay." She said, sniffing again.

"I'll take care of you." I reassured her, "Don't worry."

"Thank you." She said, looking at me in the eye again, "For being so kind to me, when I was horrible to you."

"Forget it." I told her, "You've had a rough time."

"I dig holes for myself."

"What I never understood about you..." I said, "Is how, to staff you're, kinda normal." She held in a chuckle, "But with people your own age you become this wreck." I said, "I'm sorry, but it's the truth, you are."

"Maybe I'll tell you one day." She said, finishing her cup of tea, "Sometimes I wonder..." she rested the mug on her lap, "What my life might have been like if someone like you had been my dad, I could have got away from my mum a bit more, had somewhere to go, maybe I'd have found Marie."

"Your step-sister right?"

She nodded. "My mother had a very brief marriage with another man from church." He said, "He had a daughter, also from a previous marriage. I only met her a few times, she was eighteen and I was six, but she was the nicest anyone had ever been to me. She took me out for shopping, and pizza and stuff, gave me a taste of normality. Her father hated it but she didn't care."

If Anastasie was eighteen now, what did that make Marie? Thirty? "She's still out there." I said, "You could get in touch with her if you wanted to."

"I lost contact with her after her father and my mother split." She said, "I think she might even have changed her surname, she mentioned always wanting to do it."

"What's her dad's surname?"

"Jones." She said, and I frowned. "Yes, precisely. Not exactly a distinctive one."

"We can try and find her if you'd like. It can be your Easter project."

"How would I even begin to do that?"

I blinked. "What, you don't have Facebook?"

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

The trip to London was bad enough. Trains, that were normally one of the ways that I preferred to travel, this time held hardly any joy for me. Tubes were not interesting either. If you were bored, you couldn't even look out the window, and you couldn't look at other passengers for love or money, so you had to content yourself memorising the tube map and counting the threads in the little 'Tube or False' advertisements. Some of which I would have to google when I got home. Some people were fairly sure that Covent Garden station was haunted by an actor called William Terriss, who had been stabbed there in 1897, and he wasn't the only ghost down here. There was the inspiration for Moaning Myrtle and something about an Ancient Egyptian, but even so, I could never find any sense of the paranormal when I came down here. I had arrived at Paddington and taken the central line to Gloucester Road. Put it this way, I would have "Mind the gap please' and the incessant bleeping of the doors closing rattling around in my head for the rest of my life.

The air on the platform was cool and sharp, I wrapped my coat around me, the echo of my heels bouncing off the golden walls. Tubes were scarce at night, and people even scarcer, especially in this area of London.

Gloucester Road was one of the tube stations that served the Kensington area. Pieces of blue artwork between the arches of the platform were dimly lit by ground level torches, in front of the arches sat a series of benches. It was one of the more modernly decorated stations, with the greatest amount of space around you, one of the less claustrophobic ones. At least that made the experience marginally more bearable. Quite why I had come here, I wasn't sure, but I felt like if I didn't, I was chickening out of something.

Approaching one of the benches towards the middle of the station, I shoved my hands into my pockets, annoyed.

"You told me to meet you at Gloucester Road." I said, shifting my weight from my toes to my heels.

Spiridion looked up at me, and silently, extended his arm towards me, a plastic wallet with pieces of paper inside in his hand.

"What's this?" I asked him, taking the wallet and sliding the papers out of it.

"These are the correspondence between myself and Anastasie Parisien." He said, not looking at me and swallowing a non-existent frog in his throat, "Of course I didn't keep copies of the ones I wrote."

I skim read them silently. Whilst I expected them to be full of sexual clichés and innuendos, I was pleasantly surprised. Here was not a single one in which anything more than teacher-pupil relationship was implied. You might go so far to say it sounded like two close relatives who lived far away keeping in touch and talking about their lives, one supporting the other through writing.

"So, why didn't you want me to see them before?" I asked him,

"I wanted to keep them." He said, "So I wouldn't forget how heartbreaking it was to read them. Hopefully she did the same. So she can look at them every day and be reassured every day." He said, "Spoken words last less than a second, but written words last forever."

This proved nothing, I still hadn't seen what he wrote to her. I rolled my eyes. "Is this how long it took you to edit them?"

"I haven't edited them, as you well know." He said, "Why is it," he asked me, "that you feel ill-disposed towards me simply because we are different?"

"Because you have displayed unacceptable behaviour, I have not."

"So I groomed one of my tutees, the proof of the falsity of which is sitting in your hand, I took an Atheist Oath, as opposed to swearing on a goddess that I have never yet seen physical proof of, and I refused to jump into a river because of an irrational fear of water?" he said, "What do you want from me?"

"I want you to be a man!"

"I _am _a man, Yianna!" he said, his eyes flashing, "And guess what? We aren't perfect! Do you want me to be a fearless warrior, a faultless person, a mindless set of armour? I'm very sorry for this cruel awakening Yianna, but I am as much a man now as I was the day my mother threw me in the Thames!" he shouted, "And you? You're perfect are you? Ye who hath such a faith in the system that you can't differentiate between when it's right and when it's wrong? You expect us all to be robots, following this system, and not to have our problems, our quirks, our exceptional circumstances? You fired me for no good reason, because you couldn't be bothered to look further, you isolated a girl from the world because you thought she was mad when she's just hurting! And what have we done Yianna? Anastasie and I? All we have done is prove that the perfect little Nyx-filled, bubble world in which you live out a dally daydream every day isn't real!"

And with that I walked out, leaving him on his little seat at Gloucester Road tube station.

* * *

**R&R!**


	12. Oxidative Phosphorylation

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

**Me: Here be yet another one. Just a small note: "Oxidative phosphorylation" is one of the processes by which the molecule responsible for releasing energy in metabolism (adrenosine triphosphate - ATP) is made. When ATP is metabolised, there is a huge burst of energy, so kinda see oxidative phosphorylation as the quiet before the storm...**

**Also, found another actor I thought could play Oliver – Jason Dohring, as he appears in 'Moonlight' as Josef Kostan. Only as he appears mind. **

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

_Hello, hello baby you called?  
I can't hear a thing  
I have got no service  
In the club, you see, see  
Wha-Wha-What did you say,  
Oh, you're breaking up on me  
Sorry, I cannot hear you  
I'm kinda busy._

_K-kinda busy_  
_K-kinda busy_  
_Sorry, I cannot hear you, I'm kinda busy._

I didn't dare let Oliver sleep in again. Each evening I made sure that I was first up, and I made sure that I never once bothered him to be either. I think I understood now how maybe it hurt his pride for someone to think he wasn't capable of doing all this. Yes it was a traditional alpha-male thing, but that didn't make it any less true, even for a vampyre. He was like a father to those kids, and the less he rested, I saw, the more time they had with him. I had decided that I wasn't going to try and make him spend any less time with them than absolutely necessary. The choice to sacrifice his life, his health, was his and his alone, and never mine.

Today was Friday, which meant that there would be eight PE kits to get washed and ironed, as well as their school uniforms and anything else they might have worn during the week. The hum and annoying clunking of the washing machine and the tumble dryer in the background were being drowned out by the sound of Touch FM – a radio station I took great delight in listening to, the main reason for which being that I was never allowed to listen to it at home, it was either Classic FM or nothing. I recall one incident when I had been listening to it while my mother was out getting the food shopping, and I had turned the radio off in a hurry and forgotten about it, and then a couple of hours later my mother turned it back on expecting to hear a piece by Hans Zimmer, a bit of Chopin, at the very least a movement by Mozart or Bach, and instead getting Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance'. Needless to say I was grounded for a month, not that I was allowed to go anywhere anyway, and I ate bread and margarine for a week. For the weeks following that incident, whenever I heard 'Bad Romance', I would always taste Tesco value marg, eurgh, but then after I got over that, I started to like listening to it, I think because it was like I was rebelling and she didn't even know it. Lady Gaga has remained one of my favourite artists ever since then, so when Kirsty Leahy – six 'til ten - played 'Telephone', I just had to sing along, and maybe jump up and down a bit.

_Stop callin', stop callin',  
I don't wanna think anymore!  
I left my head and my heart on the dance floor.  
Stop callin', stop callin',  
I don't wanna talk anymore!  
I left my head and my heart on the dance floor._

_Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh_  
_Stop telephonin' me!_  
_Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh_  
_I'm busy!_  
_Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh_  
_Stop telephonin' me!_  
_Eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh_

_You can call all you want,_  
_But there's no one home,_  
_And you're not gonna reach my telephone!_  
_Cuz I'm out in the club,_  
_And I'm sippin' that bubb,_  
_And you're not gonna reach my telephone!_

"Oh that's just what I need, another Lady Gaga fan!"

I spun around, Oliver was standing there, more laundry in his arms, an amused look on his face, and my feet glued themselves to the floor. "Erm, haha, yeah." I said, embarrassed.

He laughed. "It's cool. Carry on!" he said, as he turned around and headed for the washing machine, leaning down to pull the damp clothes out and put the dirty ones in.

"Yeah maybe the exercise will do me good."

"Hm?"

I patted my stomach. "My jeans are shrinking."

He looked up at me and raised an eyebrow. "What, because you've gone from extreme anorexic to severe anorexic?"

"I don't want to get fat!"

He scoffed. "Anastasie," he said sternly, shutting the washing machine door and resetting it to start the new load, "You are _not _fat."

"But I don't want to _get _fat."

"I think the chances of you getting fat are equivalent to those of the proverbial cow jumping over the moon."

"Like I said, my jeans are shrinking."

"Now..." he said, now refilling the tumble dryer and chucking the dry stuff in the basket, "This is a piece of wisdom that your mother should have taught you long ago..." he slammed the door shut, "Nobody wants to shag a skeleton."

I burst out laughing and covered my mouth with my hands. I cannot believe he just said that! "I thought curves were all the rage now." I said through my laughing, "So what? Blubber's in now?"

"Guys like boobs and bums, but we really don't care what's in between!" he said, beginning to laugh himself. "Anastasie, you were always anorexic because you knew that if you ate something, your anxiety would make you bring it back up again at some point, your weight has never had anything to do with it and if you let it have anything to do with it, then it really will become a problem and it'll be one that no one can pull you back from."

"I really can't believe you're telling me this!" I sniggered.

"I've had to do the sex talk three times and I've got another three times to go!" he said, and I just couldn't stop myself, I laughed so much it hurt, "The anorexia talk in comparison, is easy!"

Forcing the words through my throat without choking was hard most of what I said came out all high-pitched and squeaky. I had to use the ironing board to prop myself up. "My mum never told me that!"

"She should have mentioned it somewhere alongside the sex talk!" he laughed.

I looked up, shaking my hair out of my face, my sides hurting. "Yeah, she never did that either."

His eyes widened in a way that made me want to burst out into fits again. "Please tell me you know where babies come from?"

I flicked my hand. "Oh yeah, yeah I do but not from her." I chuckled, "I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be asking me this anyway!" I grinned.

"Don't worry, I'm a teacher, we're asexual." He said, rolling his eyes as he said the word 'asexual'.

"Oh?"

"And those of us that aren't can use their personalities as contraceptives."

Too late, I burst out again, grinning so hard the skin on my face stretched and my sides heaved. I was now laughing so much that there was no sound coming out.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

I bit my lip to stop the heaving, I was fairly sure that if I spoke now it would come out like I was on helium. "Yeah!" I said, it was still high-pitched.

"Don't burn the board." He warned me.

"Huh?"

"If you burn my house down I won't be happy!"

I looked at the iron, which, to my horror, I had managed to leave down on the ironing board. "Shit!" I said, lifting it off to discover an iron shaped line singed into the fabric, the burning smell sifting into my nose. "Sorry."

" 'S what it's there for isn't it?"

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

I never thought I'd be so relieved to see a little town like Scarborough again. Me, who liked the adventure and spontaneity of city life, the smell of exhaust fumes and the skyscrapers, happy to come back to a small seaside town in Yorkshire? London had been short lived, I hadn't taken any luggage down with me and, as I had correctly expected, it wasn't needed, I would not be staying long enough to need it.

I wasn't hurt by Spiridion's comments, I decided, I was just pissed off. What he said wasn't true. It was _not _me that was in the wrong. I was just doing my job.

The Symposium was in July, and I still had done nothing towards it. On my desk sat letters piles high, all of these were RSVPs to the invitations sent to every House of Night in the world, inviting their High Priestess, any staff that wished to attend, and an extension of the invitation to their brightest group of Crepusculars - final year students. Other influential figures in the vampyre world would be invited as well of course. There was roughly one House of Night to every country in the world, except in small countries where the languages were mutually intelligible, for example, The House of Night for the Netherlands and Belgium, and The House of Night for Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia – the old territories now defined by the Czech Republic and Slovakia. There were two in America, Chicago and Tulsa, two in Germany, the older one at Freiburg-im-Breisgau in the south-west, and then the newer one, built when the wall went up in 1961 at Brandenburg, two in Russia, in St. Petersburg and in Vladivostok, every other country had just the one. So, roughly, that left me with over two hundred letters to open. I needed to know exactly how many people I needed to make room for here. The Council members take it in turns to organise the Symposium, and usually, they chose rather exotic locations and varied their choices every five years. However, this was Thanatos we were talking about, and Thanatos had always made sure to organise it at her own House of Night, which was now my House of Night, but still, she chose here, every time it was her turn, and I had to oblige.

As I read through the invitations I realised that I knew hardly any of these people, not even the High Priestesses. The other European ones and the Americans I was fairly familiar with, but the ones from the far flung corners of the world I hadn't even heard of before. It surprised me that the Tulsa House were attending, their High Priestess, Zoey, the High Priestess of Vampyres, at most, sent another member of staff with whichever Creps, or Sixth Formers, as they called the over there, wanted to attend. This time, her box was ticked, and she was bringing thirteen Creps with her. Fortunately, none of the Houses were bringing more than groups of fifteen or so, the more important guests would probably stay in nearby hotels, most of the adults would be staying locally anyway, so that meant that theoretically, with all the fledglings gone for the summer break, we should have enough rooms here to cover the rest. At full capacity, we had room for two thousand. I only hoped it would be enough...

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

Later on, I found Anastasie sitting at the computer, typing furiously into the keyboard. Truth was, I normally would have gone to bed hours ago, I needed the sleep, so why was I still wondering around well into the daylight hours?

Anastasie could understand my reasoning behind wanting to spend all the time with the children that I could, and also that it meant something to my pride to be able to work, take care of them and everything else all at the same time, which was good, as I didn't need to give any further reasons. I was having that dream again. I was having it almost every time I slept now, and every time that I had it felt like I hadn't even slept, I woke up as knackered as I had been when my head hit the pillow. The extent to which this dream felt real almost frightened me, it definitely unnerved me, and quite frankly, I hated it. But a recurring dream, recurring to the extent of this one, that really worried me, because it might be trying to tell me something. Was it a foreshadow of something? In my dream I am always mourning the love of my life, and I don't have a love in my life at the moment, so as long as I don't, theoretically it shouldn't happen, but I know as well as the next vampyre that dreams like that are not so simple to interpret. Did it mean something else? All I knew was, that if I had to stab myself every time I went to sleep, I'd rather remain awake thank you very much.

"What you up to?" I asked her, approaching the white glare of the screen.

"Facebooking." She said simply.

I knew she was looking for her step-sister. "Anything?"

"I remember her telling me she had a cousin called Jenny Werthing." She said, "I was gonna search for her profile, and then search on her friends to see if Marie appeared there. Problem is..." she said, scrolling down the search page, "There are hundreds of Jenny Werthings."

"Have you done the filtered search?"

"Yeah, and there are still about thirty in this country." She said, "I was just moseying through each one. Trouble is, I have no idea what her cousin looks like. And she may not have Facebook."

"Nonsense, everybody has Facebook." I said, "Ellen Ainscombe has Facebook!"

"Do you have Facebook?"

"I do have Facebook." I said, I knew where this was going, "And no, I won't add you." She pulled a face. "Staff only add students after they're Changed."

"Have you got some particularly embarrassing pictures on there then?" she gave me a cheeky grin.

"Yeah, I'm dancing to 'Telephone' in one." I said sarcastically.

She gave me a scathing look. "Have you got all the other staff on there?"

"Yeah, I got to add them when I left."

"Which was when?"

"Seven years ago."

"Have they got any embarrassing photos?"

I grinned. "Oh yes."

"Can I see them?"

"Er, no."

* * *

_Lucy_

* * *

Oh fuck a duck.

I'd had enough of lectures, I really had. And if you thought that sitting on the main desk to the school infirmary was boring, try sitting in this frickin' lecture theatre. At least at the House of Night I get a comfy chair. We even had daytime lectures for crying out loud!

So there's this psych module on our course, it's supposed to enlighten us towards patient behaviour, helping us get inside our patients' heads better. In my experience, a good glass of wine usually solved most problems, but that wasn't enough for Scarborough General Hospital. So as one of the House nurses, some other bugger had phoned me half an hour ago to tell me that 'Dr. Cilian says that one of the patients needs regular psychiatric monitoring', and 'you'd be able to do that wouldn't you?'.

Of course if you want to get good marks on this course without sleeping with the ancient Physiology professor, and believe me it happened, you always ended up doing crappy jobs to get noticed. A friend of mine did a manual rectal disimpaction last week and I solely cleaned the ops theatre after an arterial bleed, but even still, when someone asks you to do something, saying no only gets you bad marks.

So when I rang the doorbell at Oliver Pendragon's house that evening, I suddenly realised what a dogsbody I was.

Oliver answered the door. "Hi!" I grinned.

He raised his brows in an almost panicked expression. "How do you know where I live?"

"Dr. Sex sent me to do a psychological report for Anastasie." I said, and for a moment, I couldn't figure out why he was trying very hard not to laugh. I gawped, "I just called him Dr. Sex didn't I?" He threw his head back and laughed.

"Come in!" he said, holding the door back for me.

"This is _such _a cool place you have here!" I said.

"So he's Dr. Sex now? When I was at school he was Dr. Hotpants."

I laughed. "Haha brilliant! That's gonna stick in my head for the rest of the year!"

"Are you on drugs?" he asked me.

I turned around to face him. "Well ya see we had a Physiology lecture before lunch so at lunchtime I guzzled like twelve cokes to get me out of the induced sleep-coma, and then I went hyper so I gave myself two diazepam!"

"Wait, you are actually sedated as we speak?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Okay then..." he said, beckoning for me to follow him. "Anastasie..." he said as we entered the kitchen. Anastasie was sitting at the kitchen table, bent over the Sudoku page of the Daily Mail, using the exact same pen that she had always used when she was in the isolation ward.

"Have a seat Lucy." Said Oliver, "Tea anyone?"

"Ooh yes please!" I said.

"Please." Said Anastasie.

"How'd you take it?" he said as he pressed the button down on the kettle.

"A pint of milk and a ton of sugar!" I said.

"You'll undergo oxidative phosphorylation if you have any more sugar." He muttered quite audibly.

"Are you on drugs?" Anastasie asked me, looking puzzled.

"She sedated herself." Said Oliver, chucking some teabags into cups.

I pulled a face. "Be nice to me, I'm a student nurse."

"So why are you here?" Anastasie said, filling in more gaps in her Sudoku.

"Just gotta ask you a few questions." I said, taking out my clip board and removing the papers I had attached to it. I put them down on the table and took out my pen. First of all, couple of boxes to tick – 'reason for assessment': I wrote 'rvt' for 'revisit', 'assessment procedures': 'direct interview', and then the date, 'behavioural observations': that one was to be filled as I went in note-form, and then 'conclusion/evaluation', and that ladies and gentlemen, was tonight's homework.

"So how've you been?" I asked her.

She gave me a look that wondered why I had come all the way over here tonight to ask her that. "I've been fine." She said.

"What you been up to these past couple of days?"

"Well, um, I've been helping with the kids a lot and just helping out really. I've had Easter assignments to do as well so I've been pretty busy." She said.

"You look quite tired."

She did. Her entire demeanour was somehow relaxed, like something had taken the edge off her, Lack of sleep will do that to a girl.

She smiled. "Kids are hard work."

"Here you are." Said Oliver, plonking a mug down in front of me, "A pint of milk, and, regrettably, a ton of sugar."

"Thank you!" I beamed, taking a good long sip and trying to splutter when I realised it was extremely hot. Oliver took a seat at the end of the table near to the Aga, so that he was sitting between us, but slightly back so he could stay out of it. I imagine it was something like watching a ping-pong match.

"How much sleep do you get? A night, roughly?"

She concentrated as she did the maths in her head. "Well for this past week it's been about five to six hours, more or less, but Oliver and I take it in turns to watch the kids in the mornings and evenings so that seemed to work out fairly well, but the kids have broken up for Easter now so we don't have to shuttle them to and from school, Oliver becomes diurnal, so he watches them in the daytime and then I take over as soon as the Sun goes down."

Oliver and Anastasie smiled at each other briefly, and I felt glad at least that they were getting along. "So what daily activities do you do?"

"What kind of a question is that?"

"It's just on the form, okay, just humour me?"

She folded her arms. "I get up, I cook an evening meal, I help the kids with homework, I do some washing up, cleaning, washing, ironing, I help take care of the horse, I do my own homework, I can relax and watch telly a bit if I want to."

"How much contact with other people would you say you had?" I asked.

"Actually, since I've been here, none." She said, "Apart from Oliver and the kids. It's kinda difficult when everyone hates you and live miles away anyway."

"And, I know it's a strange question, but, how much wine do you drink?"

"Huh?"

"Oh, blood-laced wine, sorry. How many glasses a week, etc..."

"Uh, none." She told me, looking as though she thought the question was somewhat invasive, but then she smiled. "Oliver hasn't even told me we he keeps it."

"Ah, but that would be telling." He said.

"Come to think of it I've only ever seen you drink tea." Anastasie said to him, "You must be a ridiculous light-weight."

"Hm." He smirked, "Oh really?"

"I'd like to see you drunk."

"I'd like to see you try."

"That why I'm not allowed on your Facebook?"

"Ooh touché." He said, "And I'm not the one that got drunk on coke!"

Both of the looked directly at me with amused expressions. "Hey hey hey don't gang up on me!" I said, waving my hands in the air. They looked at each other and laughed, and I realised then that they actually quite enjoyed each other's company. I wonder... A brief flash of thought entered my head, and I imagined what would happen if they ended up falling in love, which was kinda gross but kinda sweet at the same time, and what Yianna would do when she found out, how she'd try and break them apart or have them brutally murdered. Of course, things like that only ever happen in the movies, and there was no way it would ever happen in real life, but wouldn't that be a romance novel and a half? The Americans would make a film and call it: 'The Fling That Saved The World'.

After not really getting anything significant out of Anastasie, I decided that my work here was done, that she was alive, and, please Nyx, that she would stay that way. Oliver showed me out.

"I'm gonna need to come back every week, is that okay?" I asked him.

"I'll get the house foundations reinforced."

I ignored the dry response. "She's doing really well." I said, "I don't know how you've done it, but she's come on leaps and bounds."

"I know." He said, "She'll get there."

"There is only one thing." I said, and I watched his face turn more serious again, "She does need to drink wine. And by that I mean blood-laced wine."

"And whether or not I get it down her is another matter entirely." He said flatly.

"If you can, do." I said. I even sounded sure, because even I knew this, and he knew that I knew it, and he knew it too, "Because she does need it."

"I'll try." He said, "But I can't guarantee it."

"Okay." I said, "You seem to know what you're doing, work your magic."

"I will." He said, "Night Lucy."

"Night Oliver."

* * *

**R&R!**


	13. Catching the Post

_**Scarborough Fair**_

_**

* * *

**_

**Me: Well, this is the first chapter I've written from my uni halls! It's Freshers' Week so lots of time to write, I'm really psyched to be here but also missing home a lot. If anyone's followed my fics closely you can probably tell what I'm studying lol but I'm having a great time and will try try try to finish this fic as well as "The Lightning Vampyre", so bare with me guys!**

* * *

_Ask him to find me an acre of land, _

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, _

_Between the salt water and the sea-strand, _

_For then he'll be a true love of mine._

_

* * *

_

_Anastasie_

_

* * *

_

"Anastasie..." a little voice came from just behind my door. "I don't feel well..."

It was so dark in my room that even I couldn't see which of the twins it was, not that I could tell the difference between Fran and Ellie at the best of times. I opened my eyes - what time was it? The digital figures on my alarm clock read half seven in the evening, and it was just before I was due to get up anyway, but Oliver had warned the kids not to bother me. Not that that had much of an effect, for someone who was supposed to be on charge of them it was surprising how little they really did listen to him. "Fran? Ellie?" I said, fumbling around for the light switch.

"It's Ellie." She said, her voice low and defeated. As I switched the light on, she flinched and covered her eyes from the glare, "Where's Oliver?"

The truth is that I hadn't got a clue. Daytime was his shift, as sunlight would, you know, kill me, but he wasn't usually out late in the evening. Normally this wouldn't bother me at all, but there was something in her voice, something wasn't right, and I instantly wished he was here. "Isn't he here?" I asked, sitting up. Ellie shook her head stiffly. "What's the matter?"

"I don't feel well..." she said, walking up to me and sitting next to me on the bed. She scratched at her arms, "My head really hurts... I ache... And I itch..."

I put my hand onto her forehead, and she was red hot. "Do you feel sick?"

"I'm cold..." she said, "I want Oliver..."

"Okay, back to bed with you." I said, getting up from my own bed and following her out and down the stairs. "Do you want a drink? Tea?"

"Eurgh..." she said, "Can I have some orange squash?"

"Sure, you get into bed and stay warm." I said. I made her a squash and brought it upstairs to her, where I found her raking at her arms.

"I'm all itchy..." she said. I looked down at where she had been scratching to see horrible red and inflamed rashes on her skin, on her arms, but she was raking herself everywhere.

"I'll find you something..." I said, Oliver must keep antihistamines around here somewhere. Delving into the cupboard in the bathroom, I found some Antisan cream, that would do, and while I was at it, I let the hot water run and filled her a hot water bottle. "Rub some of this on the itchy bits." I told her, giving her the cream.

No sooner had I walked down the stairs to find some Calpol did Oliver walk through the door.

"Ellie's not well." I reported, like a soldier to a superior it was odd, because that wasn't what I had realy wanted to say, what I had really wanted to say was 'where the Hell were you?' "She's got a raging temperature and funny rashes all over her."

Oliver's face fell. "Oh God..." he said, taking off his scarf and hanging it up behind the door, "Has she been sick?"

"No, but she says she has a bad headache and that she's stiff."

He stared at me, his eyes so blank yet so full of emotion. "Shit..." he said, walking straight past me as if I wasn't there, brushing my shoulder as he went, he was halfway up the stairs before I realised he'd moved. Running up the stairs after him, I followed him into Ellie's room, where she was huddled under the covers and not moving much. She barely drunk that squash I'd brought for her.

"Oliver..." she said, turning around to face him.

"Hey Ellie." He said, "Can I see your arms?"

Reluctantly, she stuck one out from under the covers. Oliver saw the full glass tumbler on her bedside table. Snatching it in his hand, he went and tipped it out the window, and returned to her bedside.

"Oliveeeerrrr! That was my squash!" she murmured.

Not saying a word and kneeling by her side, Oliver pressed the tumbler to her skin. I don't know what it is he saw, but he suddenly went into a very blank mode.

"Call a doctor." He said, "She's got meningitis."

* * *

_Anastasie_

_

* * *

_

I've never waited so long for a doctor. Mere seconds felt like hours that dragged by painfully as Oliver sat on Ellie's bed, his palm to her forehead, in it a damn flannel to cool her forehead a little. He whispered to her gently as she held the thermometer under her tongue. I hated to say it, but I felt jealous of Ellie. I wished my father had done this for me. Oliver was amazing, I could give him that. He knew just how to distract her, to comfort her, he knew the symptoms for meningitis. I wondered how many more symptoms of child diseases he knew, had memorised after his parents died. He was so young and yet he carried so much wisdom. He loved those children more than anything in the world. I admired that about him.

Eventually, our heads jerked up to the sound of tyres on the drive outside. "I'll get it." I said, and he relaxed again now he knew he didn't have to get up.

I answered the door to a smart man in a navy suit and a large black bag. "Come in." I said, closing the door behind him and showing him the way upstairs. I had always like doctors, it was because they were intelligent, and caring, and I had never once met a doctor that scowled when they saw my Mark. The relief on Oliver's face when he saw the doctor was visible.

"Dr. Varton." He said, a smile on his face.

"Hello there Oliver." Said the doctor in a friendly manner. Just like they knew each other, "What have you got here then?"

"This is Ellie." He said, "My littlest sister."

"Ah yes, I remember young Eleanor."

Ah, so they do know each other. I had a mental block and it took me a couple of seconds to remember that Oliver's father was a doctor, a partner in a large practice and was probably known to every other doctor working in Yorkshire. We watched as Dr. Varton examined the girl thoroughly, but it didn't take long for him to agree with Oliver.

He took his glasses off and sighed. "It is meningitis I'm afraid." He said, "Probably caused by that nasty knock she had a couple of weeks ago. Bacteria can get anywhere and it just takes a sudden jolt to get them where they need to be. She is young so the prognosis is good, keep doing what you're doing, it isn't contagious so don't worry about the others getting it, but she will need around the clock attention. I presume she hasn't had MMR?"

Oliver shook his head. "No."

After the doctor went I went downstairs to unpack the food shopping from Oliver's car and put it all away, I did some ironing, a bit of dusting and stuff, all I knew is that I went back upstairs at well after midnight, and Oliver was still there, sitting on her bed, watching the girl as she slept, his eyes completely unwavering. I peeked my head around the door, the weak light form the hallway shining a strip into the room. He looked up at it.

"Hey." I said, "Still here?"

He gave a slither of a grin. "Yeah." He said.

"Oliver, you can go to bed." I told him, "I'll watch her."

"I can't." He said, his voice quiet, "I'm sorry, it's not that I think you can't do it it's just..."

"You really wanna do it."

He nodded and I didn't push the issue any further. But, he was so screwed. Switching from nocturnal to diurnal overnight had buggered up his sleeping patterns, and now he wouldn't sleep at all. I pulled a beanbag out of the corner and sat on it.

"Oliver," I said, "She'll be okay."

"You can't know that Anastasie."

"People don't die from it, not nowadays." I leant forward, "Don't worry." I said, "You'll look after her." He was silent, and I had to fill the gap, "You know when she came to me and told me she felt ill, she asked for you, again and again." I smiled, "'Cause truth is, she didn't want me, I'm not her big brother."

"If something happened to her..." he said, "I'd never forgive myself. Not for as long as I live."

"You can't look after her if you're dog-tired." I told him.

"She's my responsibility."

"And mine." I said, "I'm here, and as long as I am she's my responsibility too." Again he was silent, and an idea popped into my head, "Wait here..." I said, leaping up and going downstairs again. I watched for his expression as I reappeared with two wine glasses and a bottle from the kitchen bottle-rack, it was red, so I presumed it was laced.

"D'you want a drink?"

"Yes please!"

The way he said it made me laugh, and I passed him one of the glasses and twisted the corkscrew into the cork.

"I thought you didn't like this stuff." He said as I poured him a glass, and then myself.

"Doesn't matter though does it?" I grumbled, "I've got to drink it. And I can't get away with chucking it over my shoulder any more. It's like humans should eat brussel sprouts but they don't like them. Except that not eating brussel sprouts won't kill them."

He smiled and raised his eyebrows as he swallowed his mouthful of wine, which constituted a laugh. "It's like any wine really, it tastes better as you get older, and as you start to develop bloodlust."

"I don't know if I have."

He raised his glass to his lips again. "Trust me you'll know when you have."

"Did you know?" I asked him, leaning forwards on my beanbag, "When you were younger, before you were Marked I mean, did you know you were going to become a vampyre?"

He looked at me softly, like the question I'd asked was a sensitive one, but more for me than for him, it was difficult to explain. "No." He said, "No I hadn't got a clue. It was a weird feeling when I was Marked, but it was even weirder when I Changed, it was like I didn't know what to do with myself."

"Did you like it?"

"I hated myself." He said. Now that shocked me. Oliver was a very confident person, and self-assured, it wasn't hard to imagine himself beating himself up, but hating himself? That wasn't quite what I would have expected from him, "Partially, anyway."

"Why?"

He crossed his legs, like his answer was a complicated one, or one that he just found it hard to pronounce, "Because..." he began, his voice trailing off, "I felt that I had been robbed of a normal life. I like normal life, human life, I liked the life I had, the life I would have had if I'd remained human. The Change is a combination of hormones and other biological implications, so the only one I had to blame was myself."

"It wasn't your fault."

"No it wasn't." He said, finishing his glass and pouring himself another, "But there we go."

"Well you know..." it was my turn to trail, "Nyx lengthens the lives of those she feels deserve it, those who will do good in their lives." I said, "Nyx made a good choice in you."

His dark brown eyes shined, and I knew what I had said had hit the notes I wanted it to. "She made a good choice in you too." He said, smiling.

"Thank you." I said, downing my wine. He was right, it did taste better than the last time I drank it, in fact it was amazing, the flavours exploded on my tongue and went right down to my stomach where it spread through me in a warm, tingly kind of way. I immediately felt healthier, but it didn't last long, it just made me want to drink more, and I would have to be careful, while Oliver would not get drunk no matter how much he drank, I certainly would.

"Anastasie..." he said, looking at me with a intelligent curiosity, "I'm sorry if this is an awkward question, but..." he switched the legs he had crossed, "Why are you so normal?"

I looked at him in an amused manner. "What?"

"A couple of weeks ago you were a suicidal wreck, and now..." he raised his glass towards me, "You're completely normal. You're better than normal. You're confident, and you're mature, what the Hell happened to you that reduced you to what you were when I met you?"

"As I said before, it's partially because I expect it of people, and that's never good." I told him. I briefly debated whether or not to tell him everything. I trusted him, I just didn't know if his good opinion of me would go up in flames if I did. I bit my lip hard in my decision. What should I do? I cringed, because inside deep down I really wanted someone to know, and moreover, I wanted someone to understand. But would he? He was male, and not a very metro one at that. Yes he looked after kids but he wasn't overly feminine himself, what would he think if I told him? If anyone would understand, it would be him.

"If you don't wanna talk about it it doesn't matter." He said as soon as he saw me hesitate, I held up my hand in disagreement.

"It's good for me to talk about things." I said, taking a breath to begin and curling my fingers around the wine glass, "I can pinpoint my problem to one moment. It sounds a little silly I grant you, when problems are normally so complex and consist of so many things that to point all the blame at one single moment makes me feel silly too, but it's true." I sighed. It was the moment I fell off the narrow ledge of anonymity forever. "You don't miss what you've never known, my father wondered off Nyx knows where before I had a memory to remember him with. My mother..." I paused, rethinking exactly what I was about to say, "Was still devout enough to fail to mention that bleeding from your nethers was normal and happened to all girls when they hit a certain age." I tracked his reaction, right down to the minute details. For all the sex talks he'd had to give in his life, the periods talk was one he hadn't had yet, at least not with a girl. I looked him in the eye, "I started right bang in the middle of a Year Eight exam, a biology exam, ironically. I stood up at the end, stretching and slinging my rucksack onto my shoulder, looked down, to see my black school trousers soaked in red. Naturally everyone laughed. I might even have laughed too, if I had known what was happening to me. My biology teacher Mrs Simmons was amazing though. She put her arm around me as I shook, thinking that I had been impaled by something, shot, and that the not feeling any pain must mean I was dying. She chased the laughers away, shut them out, which was the last thing I saw before I fainted outright. I woke a few seconds later with my feet up on a chair, my trousers still soaked, my head swimming. She told me everything, cleaned up after me, gave me a cup of tea, fetched my PE kit for me so I could change into my tracksuit bottoms, and even drove me home for a little chat with my mother. My mother looked at both me and Mrs Simmons from up her nose, and informed her that it was her job to teach them about the facts of life, wasn't it? Of course I was the laughing stock of the school. And it didn't stop there. I was made fun of on a daily basis, every day of every week of every month of every year. Until no one could even remember why it was they did so anymore. So, whenever I go somewhere new, I, sort of expect that they'll already know about it, of course they don't but I feel so frightened of them, of how cruel some of them can be, that I defend against it before it's even happened and..." I slapped my knee with my right hand, "I don't know. I'm just a magnet for it I suppose. And it started to get the better of me, to the point where I still have panic attacks if any of them so much as speak to me." My lips tweaked in discomfort, "It's so stupid."

He looked at me for a moment, unmoving. "It's not stupid."

"It is." I mumbled.

"It's not stupid at all." He said, "Don't worry about it. You have a chance to change everything now."

"Thank you..." I said, "For everything you've done for me."

"Nah," he said, "it wasn't just me."

I'd have liked him to be right, but to presume that would have been to presume that I would have pulled myself out of it anyway, and, I wasn't sure if I would have done. He yawned, and in the darkness, I could still see circles under his eyes.

"You're still not sleeping." I said.

"Huh?"

"I know what insomniacs are like!" I said, almost accusing him of denial, "I lived with one for sixteen years! I can see their behavioural patterns I know how they try and cope with it." I took a breath, "I know you want to look after Ellie but don't make yourself ill in the process!"

"I'm not an insomniac..." he said, his face looked extremely reserved, his eye contact broken from mine as he looked away to the side, "It's more complicated than that."

"Why?"

"I don't know." He said, sipping his wine, "Maybe Lucy needs to give me one of those psychological report things."

I stared him down through narrowed and knowing eyes. "Yes." I said, "Yes she does."

* * *

_Oliver_

_

* * *

_

Shit.

I tried to uncrumple my face with my hands. The next seventy-two hours were a living Hell! I stayed with Ellie as much as I could, but she spent most of the time sleeping. She showed no sign of improvement, and the entire time, even when she was awake, she was the picture of a sick little girl with no love or life. You can vaccinate for meningitis can't you? I kicked myself – I should have taken her for a jab, and then she wouldn't have had to go through all this. God... I was so tired – tireder than I had ever been before, even when I was working. It didn't matter that I had some of the daytime set aside for sleeping, I couldn't sleep still. This wasn't pissing me off anymore, it _was_ frightening me. It was like every time I put my head to a pillow I would have to kill myself again, and again, and again, I could feel all the pain like it was actually happening to me, I could feel my own blood spilling onto the floor and my muscles tighten around the blade. Sitting at the end of Ellie's bed in the darkness, while Anastasie was asleep, I raised my feet up onto the cover and leant my elbows on my knees, and dropping my head between them. Whenever I closed my eyes they teared up in protest. I wiped it away – I couldn't do this anymore. I _couldn't _do this anymore! I can't take the stress anymore! I could deal with it before all these stupid dreams and before Ellie was ill but I can't deal with this. I'm not that strong. Sometimes people think that I am that strong, because most of the time I just barge through it all and just get on with things, my own feelings are so rarely upset that I always have the capacity to do it. I let out a sigh and hit an all time low – I may have to admit at some point that out of the two of us, Anastasie was probably now the more clear-thinking one. And she wasn't stupid. Of course living with a group of children it was easier to hide your own problems because they simply didn't see them, or understand them in a way that would make them worry. Having another adult in the house had suddenly put a new pressure on my life – the pressure to do a better job of hiding my problems. Anastasie was extremely sharp and noticed even the smallest of details, which I had to admit, I had not expected of her when I first agreed for her to come here. Not that I would have refused to have her if I had known, but it would definitely have affected how I let myself behave. Maybe if I had known and been less informal with her, she might not have dared pass comment out of politeness.

I looked at my watch – four forty-five. Oh God I had some post that I needed to go today, I needed to switch bank accounts and I had completed the paperwork to finalise it but it was Thursday, and if I left it until tomorrow it wouldn't get there until Monday. Crap. Wiping the sleep out of my eyes and heaving myself up, I strolled out of Ellie and Fran's room and downstairs, where I picked the letters out from where I had left them in the toast rack. Grabbing my car keys from the hook near the door, I scattered the chickens off the front drive and got in my car. Ellie would be alright for five minutes.

I didn't mind driving, I actually found it quite relaxing sometimes, as long as you made proper progress. Of course the problem with living in the countryside is that you have to drive to find the nearest post-box, a sad fact given that Scarborough was a seaside resort. Christ I was tired. I really shouldn't be driving, I _really_ shouldn't be driving. The image in front of me was blurred and I had to blink several times to clear it. It was a bloody good thing I grew up here and knew the road, otherwise I would find this extremely difficult.

I'm not exactly sure what happened next, my hearing went fuzzy, like I was hearing everything from underwater. I blinked again, clearing my vision. Of course, when these things happen to you you never realise that something is happening until it's far too late to change it. I didn't hear the lorry's horn blazing until its bumper was inches away from the left side of my car, and suddenly I was awake again. Shit! The lorry hurtled into me, striking the back left hand door first and shunting me across the middle of the road, it's cooling grill smashed through my car and I could feel the heat it expelled it was so close to me. I felt my back go in the force of the shunt and desperately tried to cover my head with my hands and arms. Every part of me was thrown against some element of my car, I felt muscles tear and bones break, and the last thing I remember thinking was:

I'm going to die.

* * *

**R&R!**


	14. Lost Without You

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

It's not the usual thing you hear when you talk to someone who has to go into one, but I actually like hospitals. Yes I know people in hospital are there because they're ill and yes, people do die there, but, and this may come as a surprise, some people do get better there too. Instead of the disinfectant smell making me sick, it reassured me that everything was clean. The doctors' white coats weren't symbols of maniac scientists, but rather the sign of a very highly qualified professional. I know there's something about defying the docs and turning out on top, but I trusted them. Probably too much. I decided that if I was going to trust anyone, I could trust a doctor. I'm actually fairly sure that if my mother wasn't so adverse towards the spilling of blood and what-have-you, she would probably have tried to marry me off to one before now.

A dark-haired nurse sat behind the reception desk, her eyes down towards her computer screen. My steps were loud and definitely hurried enough for her to notice me, and she smiled at me. "Can I help you?" she asked brightly.

"Yes..." I said, running my hand through my hair, "I'm here to see Oliver Pendragon, he was in a car accident earlier."

I cringed at the thought. Oliver had managed to drive straight into the path of an oncoming lorry, his car was a complete write-off and I did wonder if he wouldn't be in a similar state. I had been listening to the radio when the traffic news came on, and at the time I hadn't thought anything of it, until Oliver didn't come back from posting his letters. I felt on edge, and it was a scary thing to admit, but it was one of those horrible feelings that something had gone wrong. I never expected to be right. Walking up to the small crossroads in Scarborough I could just make out the remains of his car through the ensemble of police officers and fire crew. All they told me was that he had been taken to Scarborough General Hospital.

"Name?"

"Anastasie Parisien."

"Are you a relative?" she asked, raising an eyebrow whilst typing something into her keyboard.

Oh damn it. This was the part in the movies where the girl pretends that she's his fiancée. No good, I wasn't wearing a ring. "I'm his girlfriend." I said finally. Too late, the nurse had noticed the pause. She looked over me for a second, and my intuition told me what she was thinking before I needed it to.

"_His records say he's twenty-seven, she looks quite a bit younger than him... Why these vampyres let their adults fool around with their minors is beyond me..."_

"Oh, well that's alright then." She said, "Come around the side..." She pointed to a door near the reception, "I'll let you in."

She did so, and she took me to a lift at the end of the corridor. "Top floor, Room Two."

Alright, top floor, Room Two. I passed several doctors and nurses as I went, all of whom I noticed, were vampyres. I knew that vamps could now be treated at human hospitals, I didn't know we had a whole floor to ourselves...

"Are you Miss Parisien?" Another nurse asked me, clicking her pen and scribbling something on a chart as she talked. This nurse was a vampyre, albeit quite an old one. Her name tag read 'Aureliel, VN'. Obviously, hers was a very old badge, 'VN' was the old abbreviation for 'Vampyre Nurse', but I had to chuckle inwardly. 'VN' was also the abbreviation for 'veterinary nurse', and so the more modern badges were labelled RVpN. I didn't mind not being considered human but were we really animals? I smiled gently.

"Yes." I said. "I'm here to see Oliver Pendragon?"

"I know sweetie." She said kindly, "Come with me."

I had forgotten. Whilst lying to humans was relatively easy, lying to an adult vamp was an entirely different story. Oh crap. We entered Room Two, the lights dim and the monitors bleeping and breaking through the otherwise silent hospital room.

"How is he?" I asked, causing her to turn around at me with a pleasant look on her face, which was so clearly forced that I immediately felt like a prat.

Ask a stupid question. He was a mess. Limbs were cast in plaster and bandages covered pretty much all of him, I presumed they were from emergency surgery for internal bleeding. He was only semi-conscious and barely with it through all the drugs they had given him. It pained me to see him like this, it made my stomach turn in a sickening wave. Why was it that the worst things in life happen to the best people? It dawned on me – how in Heaven would the kids react when they saw him like this, and also, how on Earth was I ever going to tell them?

"Doing well so far." Said Aureliel. It didn't look like that, "Took one hell of a knock though. He's battered and bruised, we've had to cast his right arm, but so far everything else seems good, and adult vamps heal fast honey." She reassured me, "It will be useful for someone close to him to see him, how well he recognises you is a good gage of how hard he hit his head."

"He hit his head?"

"When he first came around he couldn't tell us how old he was or where he lived, or his next of kin's details." She said, reminding me of a mother hen, "We only found out who he was and his age from his driver's licence in his wallet."

"His parents are dead." I explained. Come to think of it, who was Oliver's next of kin? He'd never mentioned any other relatives. "So I don't know who his next of kin might be."

"Oh dear..." said Aureliel, "Well that rules them out then, I'm glad you managed to get here, we could do with his family's contacts."

"Um... well, he has eight younger brothers and sisters..." I said, "They don't know yet, I'll bring them in tomorrow."

"His siblings are his dependents?"

"Yes. I've been helping look after them recently."

"Any other family members?"

I shook my head. "None that he's mentioned." I saw her expression, "I'll look after the kids." I said quickly, "They know me well."

Aureliel gave me a sceptical look, before nodding briefly. "I do not wish to sound rude, but I have to ask your age." She said, "For legal purposes."

"Oh, I'm eighteen." I said, and therefore a legal adult, able to look after the children.

"Well that satisfies the humans." She said, scribbling. I could hear her think: _"But it doesn't satisfy me."_

The eyebrow remained raised. Aureliel clearly didn't believe me. But really, why would a pupil stay with a teacher over the holidays? Babysitting? A likely story. More likely we were shagging our socks off. I told myself to calm down – she didn't know he was my teacher, only that I was a minor in vampyre terms.

"Our relationship is purely platonic." I told her quite firmly. "In fact it's not even platonic it's just professional."

"I see."

With that, I turned away from her, and towards Oliver. He opened his eyes a little, his breathing in sync with the slow bleeping of the hospital monitor. At this point I didn't care what Aureliel, Yianna, or anyone at the House of Night might have thought. He had looked after me, been kind to me, and I was going to show him the same courtesy. His eyes, usually such a warm brown were blank, his pupils dilated. Bloody Hell he was a mess. They fixed themselves on me, as I sat next to his bed and held his hand after I had heard Aureliel leave. He was pretty much out of it.

"Hi Oliver..." I began, scraping a strand of hair behind my ear, not really sure what to say to him, "I suppose 'how are you' isn't exactly appropriate is it?"

He seemed to be studying me, his face less blank now than it had been. That was an extremely good sign. If he could recognise me this time, then that would mean an overall improvement, the damage wouldn't be permanent.

"_Anastasia...?_" he whispered, pausing for breath, a certain amount of wonder filling his hoarse voice as his hand clamped around mine, to the point where it was uncomfortable, but I didn't flinch, "_You're alive?_"

I grinned at him. "Of course I am!" I replied, choosing to ignore the mistake in my name and that he seemed to think I was dead, "I wasn't the one who drove in front of a bloody lorry now was I?"

He closed his eyes for a moment, like he thought he was seeing things, but it happened almost in slow motion, like he was so full of morphine that he could barely express it. "_I can't tell you..._" he said, every word taking all his effort, "_How good it is to see you... How good it is to hear your voice again..._"

"It's good to hear you again too." I said.

I could feel his hand tugging at mine. Confused, I let the muscles in my arm go limp, letting him raise my hand to his lips. I watched in wonder as he kissed my skin, his mouth warm, sweet and oddly familiar in a way I couldn't describe. It was absolutely what I would expect if he ever kissed me. Just for a moment, I found myself wondering what it would be like to kiss him, what that warm softness my hand had felt would feel like on my lips. I scoffed inwardly, it was a stupid thought, one, neither of us would ever let it happen and two, I shouldn't be having silly thoughts like that anyway. I drew my attention from my hand, which was still in his, to his face. His eyes were gently lidded, his lips tweaked up in a smile.

"_I've missed you so much..._" he said, rubbing my hand gently, his voice so full of emotion it made my heart swell. Just then, I saw a shining tear slide from the corner of his eye, _"I thought I'd never see you again."_

"Don't be silly Oliver." I replied, "You can't get rid of me."

"_Anastasia... My own... You're so beautiful..."_ he breathed.

I can't honestly say that his words didn't disturb me, but the man's head had just had a rather unpleasant meeting with the dashboard of his car, I didn't expect him to say anything fathomable. Did he think I was someone else? Maybe his brain was playing tricks on him and he thought I was an ex –girlfriend or something, someone he once loved.

"I'm _Anastasie_, sir." I said, my voice dropping to a whisper itself, "And I'm not beautiful..."

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

There was a knock at my door.

"Come in."

I lifted my gaze from my computer screen to see Ellen Ainscombe closing the door behind her. She was still wearing the same overalls and wellies that she wore around that farm of hers, and I grimaced inwardly at the trail of muck that she left engrained into my carpet. The smell hit me hard, and I made sure my face remained still as it did so. Couldn't she take a shower before coming to see me? Change her clothes, even? Her dark hair, tied back in a ponytail was a little greasy and strands of it frizzed out and fell around her face, probably a result of being outdoors in the wind. Her overall sleeves were rolled up and her arms and hands were too covered in dirt.

"Aafternoon' Yianna!" she said cheerfully in that Herefordshire drawl, "'Ow are yew tuhday?"

"Well thank you." I replied, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

She pulled a face as she sat down in the chair opposite me. "Well..." she began, folding her arms, "Aye'm afraid Aye's gaht some bad news."

"Oh?"

"Yeah Aye was jus' on my way ta market 'tis morning an' 'tere was an acciden' at 'te crahssroads jus' up at Perry's Way, traffic was slow, anyway..." she jerked her thumb up, "Aye gaht up near 'te scene like, as Aye couldn't turn around wit' 'te trailer, an' 'oose bloody car was it what was sittin' 'tere all smashed up like but Oliver Pendragon's."

I blinked. "What?" I said in a panic, "Is he hurt?"

Ellen pulled another similar face. "Aye." She said, "Anyway Aye dropped 'round 'te 'ospital earlier. Broken arm, couple a fractures, an' 'it 'is 'ead agains' 'te dashboard so 'ard 'e didn't remember 'oo 'e was."

My hand covered my mouth. "Christ..." was all I could say.

"Aye. 'E's gettin' better but Aye'd reckon 'e's not gonna be around for 'te start a term."

I hung my head in my hands. That's all I need. I replace Spiridion and his replacement lasts all of three months. I'd go over to the hospital later myself, not that I distrusted Ellen, but I needed to go and see him for myself. Could I even hire a locum at this short a notice? How long would he need off? And Christ the paperwork...

Ellen seemed to have suddenly remembered something, snapping her fingers repeatedly. "Oh, an' I saw 'tat girl 'tere, oh what's 'er name...?"

Oh God of course. "Anastasie Parisien." I said. That made everything worse. What was that girl going to do now? Aaahh the moment he walks out of hospital I'm going to make him sorry he ever got in that car! Do Fencing Masters exist purely to make my life difficult? I took a deep breath and calmed down – it wasn't his fault.

"She said she were gonna take care a 'te kids for 'im, 'til 'e was better." Said Ellen.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea." I replied, wiping my brow, "Isn't the girl a complete wreck?"

"I dunno bou' 'tat, she seemed pretty good when Aye saw 'er, dealt with it proper mature. Aye'd leave it if Aye were yew."

I semi-glared at her for the suggestion. "What?"

"Well, if she's 'appy ta' look aafter 'tem, Aye wouldn't involve 'te 'uman social services Yianna, Oliver won't thank yew for puttin' 'em in a centre, an' 'tat's what'll 'appen, he ain't got no one else but 'er."

"She can't do it alone." I said, "Not without help, I'm not going to accept responsibility for that."

Later on, I got on the phone to Dr. Cilian.

"_Yianna, that's the worst idea you ever had."_

I had expected that response. "I need someone to go and help look after Oliver's siblings."

"_I still think it's the worst idea you've ever had._"

"Why's that?"

"_Yianna the girl is a nutcase. She can barely take care of herself let alone eight prepubescent children!_"

"It'll be a learning curve for her." I argued back, "It would teach her to grow up!"

"_I wouldn't take that risk with small children._"

"How far wrong can this girl go?"

The response was sour. "_Do you really want me to answer that question?_"

"You don't have to if you don't want to." I told him sharply, "But I need someone qualified to go and make sure those kids don't die."

Dr. Cilian sighed, and I could just see him at the other end of the phone, rubbing his brow and shaking his head. "_Fine then._" He said, "_On your head be it. I'll give Lucy a call._"

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

I didn't know what it was, but I couldn't get that feeling of Oliver kissing my hand out of my head. It was like getting a song you hate stuck in your head, it sticks in your memory just because you hate it, and then you hate yourself for remembering it in the first place, or one of those really awkward trains of thought that you keep thinking about purely because you find them disgusting, like having sex with the fattest ugliest bastard in the room. Once you've thought it once, it replays in your head, plaguing you for the rest of the day until you find something better to think about. Yeah you're thinking about that right now right? This one was driving me nuts. I hated the thought of it, I hated the fact that I couldn't shift it, and I hated the reaction it was getting out of me, like the very thought itself was mocking me. I kept feeling his lips on mine, warm, soft, moist, his breath on my face, dispersed with small moans and sighs...

I drove my hand into a fist so tight that it was painful. Not only was it so wrong that it was perverted, it was really arousing. I would never admit it to anyone, not even him. So I was eighteen and had never had a boyfriend, but was I really that desperate? I didn't like to think so. If I allowed myself to remain on that trail of thought for too long I would enjoy the feeling, but I would then shake myself out of it and feel ashamed. Why did I have these thoughts? That wasn't what we were, he and I. He would be disappointed in me if he knew, I could imagine his shock, the discomfort. I was stupid.

I felt awful. I had intended to go and see him in hospital every day, but to tell the brutal truth, I simply hadn't had time. I now understood why exactly it was that Oliver always looked so tired. I thought that sharing the duties with him was hard, and now I knew what it must have been like, him doing it all by himself. Christ it was hard. I could barely get up out of bed in the morning, I physically couldn't be in two places at once. I felt like a stretched rubber band that was about to snap. I couldn't do this alone, I'm not qualified to do this and I'm sure as Hell not insured to get it wrong. There was only one person that I could call.

So when the doorbell rang that morning, not long after I'd go the kids to school, relief washed through me and I had no trouble at all leaving Ellie for a moment to go and answer it.

Pulling back the door, a huge grin spread onto my face and I flung my arms around my visitor. "Spiridion!" I said, "I'm so glad to see you!"

"Hey, hey..." he said, hugging me back briefly, before putting his hands on my arms, "My girl, I'm not that big a deal."

"You have no idea." I said, "Come in."

I know what you're thinking, but you're not right. Spiridion was the closest thing I had ever had to a father. He listened to me, reassured me, and took care of me, until Yianna kicked him out. I didn't know the details of what had happened, and Yianna had merely thought the exact same thing as you were doing now. But right now, I needed a parent, I needed help, and he was the only one I would ever class as such.

"I thought I'd never come back here." He said as I closed the door behind him, "It's strange how places pull you back to them."

"Where were you?"

"London." He said.

"Why were you there?"

"It's home for me." He said, taking off his coat and hanging it behind the kitchen door, "I'm happiest there."

"I never felt that way about Bristol." I said, "Too urban for me. Too many students."

"Let's stick the kettle on." He said, looking around, "So this is Oliver's place?"

"Yep."

"I've never been here before." He said, "Oliver told me about it extensively when he was a fledgling."

"It must seem like such a long time ago."

"Ah it's not." He said, "When you live for centuries years pass like days. And it's not a long time ago you know, seven years."

Ellie was five years old. That's what you could achieve in seven years, a new life, complete uprootal and destruction. It wasn't the length of time, it's what you could cram into it that aged you.

I took Spiridion upstairs to meet Ellie. She was shivering again, when I had only just given her a hot water bottle just before I had gone downstairs to let Spiridion in. I gave her a thermometer to sit under her tongue and gestured for him to come outside so she couldn't hear us.

"How long before Oliver can come home?" I asked him. I didn't know how the Hell I expected him to know the answer, I mean how was he to? He looked at me for a moment, his expression reflecting precisely that. Then he relaxed a little and gave me a generalised look.

"Well..." he said, "Oliver is a young, strong, healthy male vampyre. And yes, males do heal at a faster rate than females, no one really knows why, it's got something to do with survival in battle I think, anyway: He should be alright to come home in a week or so."

"But Spiridion..." I said, whispering so that Ellie wouldn't hear, "I don't think he is strong and healthy. I think he's actually quite weak."

"Why do you say that?"

I sighed, lowering my voice again. "Spiridion, he never stops working, when I first arrives he was having sleep-deprivational collapses! He refuses point-blank to go out and drink fresh blood, he's not strong, not physically. It's why he had the accident in the first place."

I wached Spiridion as he processed this information. I remembered that Spiridion hadn't really seen Oliver, or been around him at all since Oliver actually left school seven years ago.

"I always wondered if Oliver would end up like this..." He said quietly, "I mean, overworking himself. He never put himself first, not even when it made him ill. It was a shame, because he went through a lot, and for the most part it went completely unnoticed."

"It still does." I said.

"Ah you noticed." He said knowingly, "I was his tutor." He said, opening the door slightly so that he could see Ellie, who was somewhere between sleep and consciousness, "Made sense as we shared an affinity. I liked to think that I was some support to him while he was here, but I wasn't clever enough for him, not by a long shot."

"Oh?"

"He can react and calculate moves quicker than any of the others, and it's because he can think fast and sharply." Said Spiridion, "You and he are not dissimilar, you know."

I was confused. "Why?"

"Although Oliver loved his parents dearly, he was under immense pressure from them, to be successful. He could have been anything, but he insisted right from the start that he wanted to teach, he fought them all the way for that. He's a hugely talented fencer of course, but I think he feels sometimes that it was a waste of his mind, his hard work." I listened, "But he lives to work with kids." He leant towards me slightly, "He lives to help people like you."

The warmth in the words made me smile. "He would have been a wonderful father."

"Why do you say that?"

I swallowed my tea, which was now going cold. "Because whenever I look at him, and his siblings, I can't help wishing my own father had been more like him."

"He's a good lad." Said Spiridion, "I'm particularly glad, that he got through to you."

I smiled. "Me too." I said, and I was. Eternally glad, and grateful. I owed him more than I could ever repay.

_Thank you Oliver,_ I thought, _I'd be lost without you. _


	15. Lily of the Valley

_**Scarborough Fair**_

_**

* * *

**_

**Me: Hiya! Enjoy guys!**

* * *

_Ask him to plow it with a sheep's horn, _

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, _

_And sow it all over with one peppercorn, _

_For then he'll be a true love of mine._

_

* * *

_

_Lucy_

_

* * *

_

Remember how I was talking to you guys about how in my walk of life if you didn't do exactly what the person above you in the food chain said, you'd become hoisin duck?

Well, this sort of applies again.

In Chinese restaurants, they bring you the duck, roasted and pekinged, crispy fried, whatever, they put it on the table in front of you on a nice platter, and then they massacre it. Not kidding, they always cut it up in front of the guest, as quickly and proficiently as possible. And then the guest eats it, and they'll enjoy it.

Me? I'm the duck, okay? I'm the one they're rolling up in pancakes, smearing with plum sauce and garnishing with spring onions and cucumber. Yes, it's me.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the task – I love my work, it's the only thing I've ever wanted to work hard enough at to be any good at, I'm all up for pretty much anything, yes, even manual rectal disimpactations, and I may regret saying that at a later point... What I'm trying to say is, I love my job, I really do, but whatever I do I feel like I'm not asked to do something, I'm told to do it, or else. Dr. Cilian is the same. I love his sexy arse, but if he can't treat me with a little respect then I swear one day I'm gonna remove his balls. It's not like he can get anyone pregnant anyway...

I pulled my jacket from my shoulders as I walked. The sea air was nice and relaxing, the sound of seagulls a pleasant change to bleeping monitors and monotonous lecturers. Actually, I'm quite glad I have this assignment. I've been going to Anastasie Parisien for a few weeks now, following her progress. I have to say, the girl's improved so much I worry how much of a point they had for doing this to her in the first place. She's so bright, and happy, and she's actually eating. She's put on weight and now she actually looks healthy, instead of that gaunt anorexic girl who nearly choked on her own vomit when I met her. Apparently Oliver said he'd given her some wine, but she wasn't drinking that much of it.

I had no idea what had happened to Oliver until Dr. Sex phoned me yesterday and told me. I wasn't on a hospital rotation week when it happened, so I wasn't there to witness anything. It was surreal, Oliver was the kind of person that nothing happened to, or rather the kind of person who things happened to but he kept stum about it and pretended that his life was completely trouble-free. No one actually knew the cause of the accident, it was obvious that it was him that had hit the lorry, but why? Had he run a red light, wasn't he looking? I didn't have a clue, all I knew was that it wasn't like Oliver Pendragon to drive into lorries. Nastier thought floated into my head, what if he had deliberately driven into the lorry? Didn't have him down as the suicidal type either, or had he fallen asleep at the wheel? It wasn't worth thinking about. I smiled to myself. I never understood why Oliver chose to walk her every day when he could take the car and be at work in five minutes. I was beginning to understand why – now I was all grown up and all that, I could walk outside in the light with only marginal discomfort, and the lack of light at nine in the morning was beautiful, the sea, the sand, the lack of people, the quiet, ahh it was amazing! I hadn't actually been planning to come here, I'd thought I'd go straight to Oliver's, but I was ridiculously early and didn't wanna turn up when Anastasie wouldn't be there, so I took a trip down here. Putting my hands in my pockets again, I decided I should press on and go around there. There was another thing I was dreading telling Anastasie. Oliver had been in and out of it for a while at the hospital, and the medical staff there had made the decision to induce a coma. Not for long, his body just wasn't recuperating at the rate that was normal for a healthy adult vamp. He needed more help than his own body was giving itself. I had no idea how I was going to tell Anastasie this, and oh God what about those children? Shit... It was just so horrible. I only hoped to God I could.

But that wasn't the reason I was here. I was here, as instructed by Dr. Sex himself, to go and help Anastasie look after Oliver's brothers and sisters. All eight of them. I like kids, but I couldn't eat a whole one. Then again I didn't know how Oliver had held down a full time job and looked after them all by himself. It sounded very much like he needed a full-time nanny and didn't have the money to hire one. Having Anastasie there must have been a godsend for him. I think he's grown quite fond of her, like she's another of his siblings he watches over, one that's grown up now but he still looks out for avidly. She was fond of him as well, I knew this from her psych work-ups. I remember at the time of her telling me my brain suggesting slightly less honourable reasons for it, and then I thought about it a bit, and then I realised it wasn't dodgy at all. My head plays tricks on me sometimes.

I walked up the drive to Oliver's house, scattering the many free-range chickens out of my path in a whirl of feathers and clucking, although, when I raised my hand to knock on the door, I never expected to see Spiridion. The rumours still milling around from last year filled my useless skull, I suddenly I found it hard to get my words out.

"Spiridion?" I asked, wonder in my eyes, "What are you doing here?"

"None of your business." He said in his usual abrupt tone, leaning against the doorframe and folding his arms, "What are you doing here?"

"I, um..." I raised my thumb and jerked towards town, "Dr. Sex sent me to help out."

Spiridion raised an eyebrow, and I realised what I'd just said.

"I just called him Dr. Sex didn't I?"

Spiridion nodded, a grin worthy of a Cheshire cat emerging onto his face. "Come in." He said.

* * *

_Spiridion_

_

* * *

_

There is only so far along the line you can go before the shit hits the fan. If you are a bumbling idiot of a trainee nurse, you might accidentally refer to your superiors in a sexual manner, and then make a hash of what was supposed to be a professional conversation, or, if you're me, you might realise that if you didn't play your cards right, your game would be up. Moving my arse out of the porch to let the girl in, I began to chuckle to myself. Lucy herself was harmless enough, a bumbling idiot she may well be, but she's a sound enough girl, and it wasn't her I was worried about, it was her mouth, which, as you may already suspect, is in no way attached to her brain.

I did not need Yianna to know I was here. One because I'm fairly sure she's convinced herself I'm a pervert and two, she's the only one with the potential power to remove me, so to speak. I had just put up with her for the entire duration of a court case. There was no way I was putting up with her anymore. Of course, one slip of Lucy's tongue and that's exactly what's going to happen, and then all this will be for nothing. I'd better make sure I didn't screw this up.

"Lucy." I said, turning around to face her mid-step so that she ended up less than a metre away from me. I folded my arms again and peered down at her.

She stopped dead. "Yes?" she asked, timid like I had just raised a fist.

"I want you to listen to this because it's very important."

"Sure..." she said, her eyes still following me for any sign of movement.

"Yianna must not know that I am here." I told her frankly, she was silent, "And that means, that you can't say a word about me being here, not a natter to your friends, to your colleagues not even so much as a drunken whisper in the ear of whoever the poor sod is you bring back with you of a night out. Do you understand?"

Her expression was that of a deer caught in headlights. "Crystal." She said, her face fixated.

"Good." I said, just intimidatingly enough to leave a mark. I needed this opportunity, and I couldn't tell her why. If I did she would run to Yianna for sure. What I was doing was not right, I knew that. What people seemed to miss about my being here is that it is for no pleasure, personal or otherwise, of my own, it was for that of a friend. An old friend I wasn't going to let down.

* * *

_Anastasie_

_

* * *

_

The next time I went to see him, it was to pick him up from the hospital. The nurse let me in and told me where to go as before, but this time Aureliel was nowhere to be seen. Everything felt easier. I'd have to apologise for not coming to see him though. At least he'd be happy the kids were okay. He'd understand, in fact, if he knew, he wouldn't want me to visit him, he'd want me to look after them properly. It made me more comfortable about my achievement in managing the task. And Lucy was great, a little blonde around the edges, but great just the same. The news that Oliver had been induced into a coma for his own benefit hadn't even come as a shock to me. The last few months had made me completely numb to everything. I wondered briefly if this was what it was like to grow up – something that would have once disturbed me deeply, now hardly anything. A tiny scrape on the surface of my skin that barely bled. The metal plate with 'push' engraved into it was unfamiliarly warm to the touch as I entered the floor ward. It was different now. Now, I had to keep face. I had to keep going, because there were other people depending on me. I could keep going now, I could keep going for Ellie, for all of them. I think it made Spiridion proud, and it definitely made me proud. We were all dog-tired, all of us, but it didn't matter. At the start, Lucy had been a little wary of Spiridion's presence, knowing of course how much Yianna hates him, but eventually she came around to the possibility that we were nothing more than father and daughter to each other. I sighed – school life wasn't supposed to be this complicated – I was supposed to think that all teachers were scum, that homework was toilet paper and that I wouldn't have been seen dead where I was for anything. How did I end up here?

I opened the door of the hospital room to see Oliver, fully dressed in dark jeans and light blue shirt, his blonde hair marginally scruffier than normal, packing the remainder of his things into a bag. I was immediately struck by the image - he looked so different. Firstly all signs of casts, bandages, drips, were all gone, he was standing, no crutches, no nothing, not an ounce of pain in his eyes. I felt so uplifted, now everything could go back to normal, and Ellie and the others could see him, everything was going to be alright now. It was odd how the simplest of pictures could make me smile, but it was the tiniest details that appealed to me the most. Normally he would look tireder, more run-down and more serious. Oliver could add decades to his age just by changing his expression, and his expression had always been 'teacher-y'. The medically induced coma had probably, in all honesty, done him the world of good, as had the litres of blood they'd pumped into him in the mean time. The faint hints of what might have been dark circles under his eyes were completely gone, he looked fresher, livelier. It made him look younger, and again I was reminded of the fact that he was barely five minutes older than I was. The sight was instantly better than what he had been two weeks ago, even better than before two weeks ago, and it put a smile on my face.

"Hi." I said, closing the door and putting my hands into my pockets.

He looked up at me, his dark brown eyes meeting mine, and raised his brow ever so slightly, and in a moment, everything slowed down. "Can I help you?" he asked me.

I blinked. "Oliver?" I asked, raising my own brow, "It's me?"

Without moving from where he was bent over his bag, he closed his eyes in frustration and sighed, before opening them again, maybe to check if I was still there. He stood up straight.

"Oh Christ I'm sorry..." he said, wiping his eyes, "I um, I'm having some memory problems."

I gave a small laugh. "Don't you recognise me?"

There was a pause before he shook his head, and I realised that the laugh had been out of place. I frowned. "Oh God... You don't."

"The doctors say it will come back fairly quickly." He said, "Guess I hit my head pretty hard eh?"

"You must have done..."

"So." He said, sitting on the edge of the bed, "You, are, Anastasia?"

"Almost." I nodded, "Anastasie Parisien."

"And, how do I know you?"

I sighed, and walked over to him, placing my hands in my lap and sitting down next to him. "Well..." I began, keeping my voice low and serious, "I owe you my life."

He blinked, like he couldn't believe it. "Really?"

"Metaphorically, I suppose."

"Thank Nyx for that, you had me thinking I'd done something heroic."

"Well, I'm in Thirds at the House of Night, I'm one of your tutees."

His eyes narrowed. "But, why are you here?"

I took a breath. "I was having a really hard time, a _really _hard time. I tried to kill myself at one point..." I didn't want to meet the surprise in his face if I looked up from my lap, "You helped me through it, you still are. And well, now that I'm eighteen I didn't want to go home in the holidays, my mum's a Jehovah's Witness."

"Ouch."

"Big ouch. Anyway, you said that I could stay with you, in return for helping out looking after your brothers and sisters."

A smile spread onto his face. "I have brothers and sisters?" he asked, his voice light like this was some kind of emotional wave that had just lapped over him.

"Eight."

"Eight?"

"Um-hm. You call them your travelling circus."

His smile grew into a grin, more to himself than me. "I like kids." He said quietly. "Correct me if I'm wrong..." he continued, "But..." his face fell a little, "I don't have parents, do I?" I shook my head. "I had this feeling they had." He said, "It's strange, I'm not remembering these memories I'm feeling them. It's like playing pin the tail on the donkey." He stopped for a second, "Um, I need to ask you something."

I grinned. "Fire away."

"We're not, that is there's nothing..." he held his hands up as if he was looking for the best way to phrase something and finding the concept difficult, "Going on, between us, is there?"

My eyes went wide and I automatically shook my hands palms down flat in front of me. "Oh God no, no no no it's nothing like that!" I laughed.

He let out a sigh of relief. "Thank God, you know, one of the nurses came in a few minutes ago and told me my girlfriend was coming to see me and then I saw you and you're a fledgling and I thought..."

"Oh I only told them that so that they would let me up here, don't worry we aren't having some illicit affair."

"Good."

At that moment a female vamp doctor with long dark hair walked in, white coat and clipboard completing the ensemble. She kind of reminded me of Courtney Cox as Dr. Maddox in the eighth season of Scrubs. "Ah you must be Miss Parisien." She said, "Nice to meet you I'm Dr. Bennett."

I shook her hand. "Nice to meet you."

"I take it you're here to pick up Oliver here."

"I am." I said.

"Now..." she said, "It's very important that he stays at home for these next couple of days. We'll want to see him again every three days to check up on how his memory is doing, he'll also need to see a trauma psychologist. No working, no drinking and definitely no driving for the time being. I'll give you some analgesics for the pain and stiffness, you can collect them from the main dispensary on your way out."

"Fantastic, thank you." He said, shaking her hand as well.

"You're welcome."

"Come on then, your travelling circus is waiting to see you." I said, giving him a sly look, "Oh, and I think I'd better drive."

"Do you know where I live?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yes."

"Well, that makes one of us."

* * *

_Oliver_

_

* * *

_

What the bloody Hell has happened to me? I still didn't remember the accident at all, everything was a blur, literally. Like what it was I was doing, where I was going when I was driving, where I lived, where I worked, who my family was, who Anastasie was. I buried my head in my hands in the passenger seat as she drove me to wherever my home was. I felt so weak, the muscles in my legs were non-existent and all of me felt tired, stiff and bruised. I was so lost, in this strange place, this car, Anastasie told me was my own but it didn't feel like it. It was funny, I actually had to live up to myself. Was I really this paragon of good that she had described me as? All this, I woke up and I had been no one and suddenly I was someone's brother, someone's carer, someone's tutor, someone's teacher. Right now as we sat in the car in the heavy Scarborough traffic, Anastasie had been telling me about herself, her problems. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. She was a lovely girl. Beautiful, confident, intelligent, mature. I completely failed to see how someone like her could have had such a difficult time. What was so wrong with her that made the other fledglings want to bully her to the extent where she tried to commit suicide?

"Anastasie..." I said, watching her pay attention to the road, "If I did all those things you said I did for you, then, I'm so proud of how far you've come."

Her face softened in a hushed kind of joy. "Thanks..." she said, now trying to hide a massive grin. "You know, these few weeks, with you and your family, and your mad horse, have been the happiest I've ever been."

"I have a horse?"

"A pregnant one."

"Shit."

She laughed. "Whenever I had to go back to my mother's..." she said, "I spent all my time wrapped up in blankets because she refused to turn the heating on and I wasn't allowed to eat proper food, I wasn't allowed out of the house, before I was Marked the only time I was allowed out was to go to church and now I couldn't even get out like that. I used to sleep as much as I could." She lowered her gaze towards he registration plate of the car in front, "That's another thing you don't know about me..." she said, "My mother used to get up at ridiculous times in the night to pray, and it messed with her sleeping patterns so much that she started suffering from insomnia, so the doctor put her on sleeping pills. She would bring the bottle home but she wouldn't take them, she said that if God didn't will her to sleep then so be it. Anyway... I..." she spread her fingers over the gearstick, "I used to take them. Quite a lot."

"Why?"

"I was happiest at night when I was sleeping." She said, "Being in bed was the best place to be. Dreaming, be it awake or asleep. So, because my body didn't get tired often enough, I used to help it along, so to speak. I wasn't trying to overdose or anything, I just wanted to sleep. It made the time pass quicker I guess."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that, all this. It sounds like you've come a long way though. I mean, I look at you now, through fresh eyes, and you're this strong and powerful person ready to take on the world."

"I feel like that..." she said, "Like finally, I can be free." She frowned, "Too bad it's all on a timer."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to go back to school." She said quietly, "The others will make fun of it."

"Don't listen to them. What do they know?"

"Too much." She mumbled.

"Anastasie, if there's anything I can do to keep you happy..."

She perked up with an idea. "Let me stay with you!" she said, "In the term-time!"

"I don't know if the High Priestess would approve of that." I said, even though when I listened to what was left of me from before this accident I wanted her to stay, I could do with the help, and there was some little gist, a twist in my reasoning. I liked the company. "And when the others found out they'd spin all sorts of rumours."

"I suppose." She said as we turned into a driveway.

"Can you smell that?"

A familiar and sweet smell filled my nose, its vapour reaching every part of me and relaxing me into a state of something akin to wonder. I watched her as she sniffed the air lightly. "No..." she said, "What is it?"

I knew that smell, I definitely did. I didn't just know it, it meant something to me. I didn't know where it was coming from, but I knew that I loved it. "Lily of the Valley." I told her, letting it fill my senses and closing my eyes for a second to enjoy it.

"My perfume is Lily of the Valley." she said. So that's where it was coming from.

"It smells lovely."

"Weird..." she said, "I'm not wearing any at the moment. Maybe it's in my clothes or something." she said, her smile as sweet as the fragrance. But I hadn't smelled it in the car at all until just now. She was right, it was odd. "Get ready to be mugged." she said, and suddenly the smell was gone, and my attention was elsewhere.

"Get ready to be mugged."

It was a big house, like an old farmhouse without the farm, on three levels, with a big garden and a stable block around the back. I had to wonder how I managed to pay for all this on a teacher's salary, I must have inherited money when my parents died. I could see little faces peeping out of the windows, but they disappeared as quickly as I saw them. The front door opened just as we got out of the car, and suddenly I was caught up in a wave of shouting and screaming and hugging. All these kids, and they were just kids, throwing themselves at me mercilessly... Wait...

"Ellie..." I said, my attention suddenly on the front door. I gently pushed my way past the others and marched into the house. I didn't know how I knew my way around, it was complete autopilot. "Ellie!"

I had no idea where I was going as I practically threw myself into an upstairs room. "Ellie?"

A little girl – Ellie, was in her bed, two Barbie dolls and an arrangement of various oddly coloured outfits laid out on her duvet. She looked up at me, her face sullen, and life came into her eyes. It was truly magical.

"Oliver..." she whispered as I crossed the room and enveloped her into my arms where she lay, "You're better..."

I held onto her tightly, like if I held her tightly enough all the love I had for her would jump from me to her. She quivered as I held her – I was better, but she wasn't. Her skin was rough from the rashes and she had a raging temperature.

"I'm never leaving you again..." I promised her, "Never, I promise!"

"I'm glad you're better." She whispered into my ear.

"Me too."

I made sure that Ellie was comfortable, and then I spent a good hour just wandering around the house and re-accustoming myself to it. It did feel like an old friend, its rooms made me feel that this was entirely where I belonged. The smell of old furniture, the creak of the odd floorboard, the way the notes from the piano keys resounded off the walls, everything made me feel a little more secure than I did before. If I thought too much about where I was going then I found myself lost. I just shut my curious mind off and let my legs walk, they knew where they were going, even if I didn't.

Eventually I found myself in my own room, looking in my own drawers to see what was there. It was a cool room, old, like the rest of the house, and I almost thought that if I walked forward now and looked out of the window I would see a bustling farm. There was a fireplace in the room straight in front of and opposite the bed, an old one, a dark mahogany beam set into stone of the wall, but it looked barely used. As I pulled drawer after drawer, in my bedside table, in the top drawer, there was a big blue case that looked like a jewellery box but three times the size. I clicked the latch open and lifted the lid. In it lay a piece of white paper neatly rolled up and tied with a red ribbon. I pulled off the ribbon with caution, something deep inside me was afraid that I would break this thing. As I unravelled it, I felt something very powerful rise inside me. It was a degree, in History and French, and it was a double first, from Cambridge.

Was this my degree? Me? A double first from Cambridge? I blinked hard as I tried to recall the lectures, the seminars, the essays, the knowledge that I must have gained. Poof. It was all gone. Just like that.

There was a knock on the door. "Oliver, are you in there?"

"Yeah." I replied, turning my attention back to the degree as Anastasie opened the door. She looked at me gently, and I think she knew what I was thinking.

"It's all gone Anastasie." I said, "All that information, everything I must have worked my arse off for. Everything I spent six years of my life studying, it was all for nothing."

She sat down beside me. "It wasn't." She said, "Your memory will come back. You have to give it some time." She smiled, "I never got round to asking you," she said, "What it was like there. I was going to, I guess I'll have to wait now."

"I wish I could tell you." I said, placing the degree gently back in its box and just looking at it in awe, "Maybe I'll be able to one day."

"I thought about going there once..." she said, her wavy blonde hanging over her shoulders and slightly in her face, "I liked history very much. Wasn't so keen on French mind. Now I'm kinda lost caught up in this world of vampyre sociology and magic and, history doesn't seem to have much of a place here, which is a surprise to me actually."

"Vampyre History used to be taught in Houses of Night up until about the turn of the twentieth century." I told her, not sure how I knew myself, maybe it was general knowledge, like how to ride a bike or how to cook, "And the precise reason for that was because, well not because it was any nastier than human history but because it wasn't significantly better."

She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes in a surprised yet unsurprised gesture. "I thought vampyres were perfect."

"You'd be surprised."


	16. Miscalculations & Accidents

_**Scarborough Fair**_

_**

* * *

**_

**Me: Hello! Another one! R&R!**

* * *

_Anastasie_

_

* * *

_

The doctor came again today. Just as much to look over Oliver as Ellie – why was it that everything in my life over the past few months has revolved around hospitals and doctors' visits? It's been a week since the last one, for both patients, it feels like a day. This was a different doctor to usual, and was another one that had known Oliver's father well and seemed to be on quite informal terms with him, which, shockingly, surprised Oliver. I suddenly realised that there were bigger gaps in his knowledge than I realised, than he had actually let on. It made sense that he should remember the more immediate things first, the current things, like Ellie, and the kids, where things were in the house, etc... But the past things, like a friend of his father's... Did he even remember what his father did for a living? Or his mother? Maybe I would fill him in later. I think Oliver was too polite to admit to the man that he didn't have a clue who he was.

The doctor poked and prodded Ellie first, and then asked me to turn the light off so he could look into her retinas, all the time chatting to Oliver about random things. He listened to her heart and took her blood pressure, took her temperature. It didn't take him long to come back with the report that there wasn't what you might define as a significant improvement since last week. Whilst she was not technically getting any worse, the kid was still very very ill, and I even asked the doctor about the potential of hospital intervention. Apparently only if push comes to shove, he said, would hospital intervention be necessary. Her prognosis was better in familiar surroundings, he said, and home was where she was most relaxed. It did little for my nerves.

Sighing and writing a prescription for some stronger meds, he put the slip on the table and jerked his head towards the bed indicating for Oliver to sit down.

"Right, your turn." He said.

"But I'm fine." Said Oliver, a puzzled look on his face.

The doctor gave a sceptical look. "Last time you said that you were in Intensive Care five minutes later."

Oliver rolled his eyes and went to sit on the end of Ellie's bed, where the doctor began poking and prodding him, continuing to talk whilst performing his examination. "I'm not going to be charged for this am I?" he asked.

"No no it's all part of the service, I don't know much about vampyres myself we usually have specialists for that sort of thing."

"So why are you examining me then?"

"I can still tell a healthy vamp from an unhealthy one mind, the medschools stick it all in a small module at the end of the second year."

"Fantastic."

The doctor pulled his stethoscope out of his ears. "Well..." he said, "I'm pleased to say Oliver, that for the first time in your life, you're actually healthy. Pity you had to knock out half your brain cells to do it."

I snorted. I dearly hoped this guy was as good a doctor as he was a comedian. He reminded me of Spiridion actually. Getting used to Spiridion being around the place on a daily basis was one thing, getting used to Lucy was another. I had decided that I liked Lucy – she was a little like marmite, you either loved her or you hated her and I had been sitting on the fence ever since I met her. Lucy's mouth was bigger than her brain and despite her best intentions, she wasn't the best at keeping secrets. I far preferred Oliver's company for that kind of thing, but Spiridion reckoned she was harmless and to be fair to her, she was very sweet. She just had a huge gob on her.

Later on, after the doctor had gone and I had a spare moment to myself, I sat down at the computer and logged on, and I heard her voice behind me.

"Whatcha up to?" she asked, plopping herself down on the sofa, a packet of biscuits rustling in her hand. "Want some?"

"Er, no thanks." I said, "Just checking Facebook."

"Ooh add me." She said, "It's Lucy Cavanagh."

"Will do." I said. I typed the name into the search engine and added her, before continuing with what I was doing before – I was still trying to find Marie, with no luck. I loaded Google and started typing.

"Looking for someone?" she asked me.

"Yeah." I said, looking around, "My sister."

Her face lit up. "Really?" she asked, "What's her name?"

"Marie."

"Older or younger?"

"Older. Much older, she's thirty now."

"_Thirty?_"

I swivelled my chair around to face her. "Well."

"Your parents split?" she asked sympathetically.

"She was my stepsister, my mother's daughter. I just want to find her again."

"Have you tried putting an ad in a paper or something?"

"I don't even know her last name."

Lucy's jaw fell. "What?"

"I know it sounds stupid but when she left to go to university I was six years old, I haven't heard from her since and I don't know what her dad's surname was. My mum would never tell me."

"She's never contacted you?"

My stomach fell. Did she not want to contact me? She would have known how. Had she tried, phoned or written and had my mother intercepted it?

"No." I said, "No she hasn't."

* * *

_Oliver_

_

* * *

_

Later on, I took myself down to the stables. Well, it was less 'stables' than it was a 'stable', and it was less a stable than an open box. It was directly attached to the tack room and feed room, you had to go through a little door at the back of that tack/feed room and down a few stone steps, and you were standing in the box, the only thing separating you from the horse being a five-foot breeze-brick wall with a stable door in it. I found Anastasie mixing feed at the feed-bins, eyeing up the amount of pasture mix she had to put in. Dressed in an old pair of trackies, a dirty hoodie and wellies, her long blonde hair tied back loosely, she tipped the mix into the bowl and threw the scoop back into the feed-bin. I felt a certain degree of fondness as she did so, how easily she threw herself to everything.

"Didn't know you were a horsey girl." I said.

"I'm not." She said, stirring the feed up with a stick, "Something else to thank you for I suppose. The smell of horse-shit that I now permanently carry around with me."

"Horses teach discipline, responsibility and practicality." I reminded her, although quietly I was wondering where the outburst of 'teacher' came from, "No wonder this is doing you good."

She stuck her tongue out at me. "You sound like Demeter." She knocked off the last flecks of horse food off the stirring stick into the bowl and closed the feedbins, "I can't say I'd mind it, being a horsey girl."

I smiled. "Thanks for looking after them these past few days. And her." I gestured to the horse. "I know it's a mean task."

"Yeah well..." she shrugged, "I owed you. Still do in fact."

"You owe me nothing." I said, "I want to make that clear."

"You got me out of, a pretty nasty rut."

"You got yourself out of it." I answered, "I just gave you the space to do so."

She suddenly looked very stressed, as if mid-life or death decision, wisps of her hair blowing around her face that she was too distracted to move. Finally, she spoke: "It was worse than you think it was." She said, her face grim.

"No it wasn't." I said, meeting her gaze squarely – this girl's eyes were so blue it wasn't normal, it was a cornflower blue. Scientists say that some colours of certain wavelengths relax your eyes, and that blue was enough to put my soul to sleep. I didn't know what it was, but she could look at me, just like she was now, and hold me there, like she was the only thing stopping me from falling off the top of a sky-scraper. It made me feel serene, and yet it made me pissed off at myself too – I didn't like the tiny little details like this that led my brain down the path of thinking that she was attractive – that wasn't our relationship, I knew that, but I didn't know it because I knew, as I genuinely couldn't remember, I just knew because I'd been told. The first thing I remembered thinking when she walked into that hospital room that day was how pretty she was – her beauty struck me like lightning in that millisecond before my eyes honed in on her Mark and saw she was a fledgling. Every time I noticed those minute details, like how she could hold my gaze, I saw a flashback of that millisecond, I felt that jolt hitting me, and then I felt guilty and angry – she trusted me, I shouldn't be thinking like that.

"What?" she asked me.

"I don't remember that day anymore." I told her, "Maybe it'll come back to me, but what I do remember is what I thought of it."

Her face was blank. "What did you think?"

"I didn't believe..." I began, "Don't believe..." I was hooked in her gaze again, "That you jumped from that cliff, without the slightest hope that your affinity might not be enough."

Something inside me wrenched when her eyes filled with tears. "How did you know...?" she whispered.

"Because I knew there was more to you..." I said, "Than miscalculations and accidents."

Finally she succumbed to the hair in her face and raised her hand to brush it behind her ear, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes at the same time. "I should have known better than to try and fool you..." she said, grinning through the emotion, the sparkle returning to her eyes, "You're cleverer than I ever gave you credit for."

A kick on the stable door distracted her, wrenching her attention from me, and she proceeded to walk down the stone steps and drop the feed-bowl over the door of the stable, where the mare immediately attacked it like she hadn't been fed in months.

"Indeed I wish I was clever enough to be worthy of your credit, however, I fear, I am not."

"Did you see that degree?"she asked me, "A double first, from Cambridge no less?"

"I was always pushed hard." I said, "To work hard. I remember that... It was normal in my family, my mum and my dad, they both worked so hard I wouldn't see them for weeks on end, they expected me to do the same."

"But you do work hard." She said, "I've never met anyone who works as hard as you do."

"It was work that got me where I am, not brains." I said, "I'm no genius, I just made it happen."

"Your father was a GP, partner of a big practice, you told me once, that he always wanted you to go into Medicine."

I listened with awe as she told me more things about myself than I currently knew, and I felt like an idiot. "Did he?"

She nodded. "And, you decided against that route, because of the sleepless nights, endless stress and high suicide rates, and took History with French instead. And you know what?" she chuckled, "I think you're no better off now than if you'd become a doctor. And you'd have a heck of a lot more money too!"

She was right. "I don't know." I said, "Maybe I would have enjoyed Medicine. Maybe I wouldn't. All I know now when I think about it is this feeling of enthusiasm whenever I talk about my course. And right now, it's all I need to know I made the right choice."

"Mais bien sûr." She said, "Et si t'étais devenu médicin, t'aurais pas eu le temps à passer 'vec tes 'tits frères et 'tites sœurs."

"Le temps, tu dis? Ouais j'ai le temps 'vec eux, c'est dommage que je me couche pas." I felt myself smile, "You never said you could speak French."

She gave a coy smile back. "You never asked."

"I'm asking now?"

She grinned. "My great-grandparents were from France actually, from the Champagne region, they moved here just before World War I started, when there were rumblings in Europe. Good thing they did. I spent a lot of time around my grandmother – she pretty much refused to speak any English." She said, "That's where my surname comes from, it's her maiden name."

"Were you close to her?"

"I was." She said, "But when I was about ten her mind started to go. She died a few years later, and at that time she didn't know who I was."

"That must have been hard."

"It was." She said solemnly, "But, I'm not sorry." She paused to look for my reaction, "Oliver she had no idea who she was when she woke up every day, she had no idea where she was, she didn't know who we were, and she hated it. I miss her." She picked the empty feed-bowl up from the stable floor, "But I'm not sorry for her."

* * *

_Spiridion_

_

* * *

_

Sitting in the kitchen, close to a warm Aga, reading the paper with a cup of strong coffee is definitely my idea of relaxation. Once again, the headliners were astonishing, someone dead, someone murdered, some footballer had yet another affair and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been caught in bed with a young lad in Thailand. Just another day in Britain's tabloids.

Now there was only one thing that could make this any better: Complete and utter silence. Of course being in Oliver's house, this simply didn't happen, well naturally, there were eight small children to consider, however, I was surprised that the noise wasn't actually coming from the children, but more from the supposed adults themselves. Oliver and Anastasie were attempting to make enough lasagne to feed the five thousand, from scratch apparently she doesn't know how to make it and he's forgotten how to make it, so the two of them are currently running around like headless chickens trying to make a half decent attempt at a meal. Lucy had been actively excluded from this activity on the reasoning that too many cooks spoiled the broth, and the assumption that her knowledge of cooking was as loose as her tongue, and hence was filling in her psych form on Anastasie opposite from me, making up the answers, more of less. I should think with both of them, Lucy omitted, they might make one barely passable sheet of pasta.

Oliver's voice cut my grasp of the words on the page in front of me in half. "I think you've put too much water in."

I was happier now that Oliver had relaxed – when he arrived back here he was like a little lost puppy, wondering in and out of the rooms as if he was trying desperately to grapple with the facts of this being his home, where he'd grown up, and him not remembering anything about it. He was more at ease now, and as I watched them preparing food, I saw he could remember where things in the kitchen were kept, and remembered elements of his past, and his present, but not others. Poor lad, must've been awful, while his body could heal quickly, his mind could take months to come back completely.

"I didn't put too much water in." Came the response, "You didn't put enough flour in."

"I didn't, look at it it's like glop."

"I put exactly what it said to in there."

"So did I."

I interjected. "Does the recipe say something about extra for kneading anywhere?"

"Well you must have drenched it in oil then."

"I did not!"

"Then what the Hell is this then?" Oliver lifted a handful of runny pasta dough out of the ball and let it drip from his fingers. "Never mind, how's the bread going?"

"It's done two-hundred of the one-hundred and twenty minutes." I said.

"It's fine!"

It wasn't until I saw things like this that I finally began to believe in Nyx. I mean sure, we all acknowledge her existence, but some of us just see more of Her than others. In my three centuries, I had seen far too little of Her to reassure me that I could place my faith in Her. Like with any divinity though I suppose, all religions have to face the fact that the worlds their respective Gods created and control are not perfect. Apparently it's all our fault, but never mind. But when I saw these two together, I was sure that somewhere, somehow, She had had something to do with it. The way they danced around each other, they complimented each other so very perfectly. It really was, as Yianna would say, Nyx's work. All I knew was, they'd better not waste this second chance. Otherwise, She'd be really pissed off.

"Oh really? So why's the breadmaker set to pizza dough?"

"It isn't, the light sticks."

"Yeah, it sticks on normal loaf."

Must... Resist... Urge... To laugh...

Ah what the Hell I give up.

Both Oliver and Anastasie turned to look at me as I did so. "What's so funny?" asked Anastasie, raising an eyebrow coyly. Even Lucy, who had been surprisingly quiet up until now, looked up.

"My dear I haven't laughed so much since Neville Chamberlain returned to England waving the Munich Agreement shouting 'peace in our time' and Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia the next day!"

"What?"

I put the paper down. "Now I'm not the sort of man you can take out on a Friday night to watch Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart." I told them, "If I wanted a screening of No Reservations, I'd pay for it."

"Pull the tree out Spiridion." Came Oliver's sharp-tongued reply as he added more flour to the pasta dough, "You'd give anything to watch us rip each other's throats out, stop complaining."

"Ah throat-ripping I am all in favour of my boy, but you two are arguing like an old married couple."

Anastasie stuck her tongue out at me. "Well maybe we are an old married couple."

Ha. If only they knew.

If only they knew.

* * *

_Lucy_

_

* * *

_

Spiridion was on good form tonight. The man was a wild card but I'll hand him this; he always made me laugh. We were all in the kitchen, Oliver and Anastasie were trying, and kinda failing to make lasagne from scratch, making the pasta and everything. Spiridion was reading the paper, looking increasingly pissed off, and I sat across from him, making up answers for Anastasie's psych report. I didn't see the point in actually interviewing her for this stuff anymore, I knew what to write, she didn't even need them now and was only really on them at Dr. Sex's request. I should have left hours ago, Ellie's condition was slowly improving, and right now she was sitting on the sofa curled up under her duvet and watching the Flintstones. I dunno, I was still here because I kinda liked being here, made a change from my grotty flat and my room at the House of Night, it felt like being a part of a family, and I think that's what Anastasie felt too. I wanted a chance to watch her, and to watch Oliver, and watch how they interacted. Oliver's inhibitions were slackened by his loss of memory, as were Anastasie's boundries, leaving rawer emotions on the surface. They were very fond of each other, that much was obvious – they treated each other like friends now, like equals.

I looked up briefly at Spiridion – he didn't see me, he seemed to be smiling to himself. Normally, if he saw things like this, he would roll his eyes and look constantly annoyed until someone stopped out of forced courtesy. He was fond of her too, as if she was his daughter. Why was he smiling to himself when I almost, almost, perceived their interaction as flirtatious? I'm sure it must be me... Neither of them would act like that really – it was probably a joke more than anything. But Spiridion was right – they did look like an old married couple. I had a momentary daydream of her wearing a frilly yellow dress and an apron and waving a ladle at him dressed in one of those fifties suits. Kinda funny really, I should probably wipe that image from my head before I start laughing for no reason and people think I'm even weirder than they already think I am. Still...

Did my eyes deceive me?


	17. Indefinitely and Infinitely Screwed

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

**Me: Here's the next chapter. Hope you like it BTW this in one of the chapters I edited in order to coincide with the events in the books, so there are spoilers here for Dragon's Oath. No likey no looky. **

* * *

_Ask him to reap it with a sickle of leather, _

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, _

_And gather it up with a rope made of heather,_

_For then he'll be a true love of mine._

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

_The air was crisp, it was a beautiful night._

_The moonlight on me felt wonderfully cool, almost enough to make me forget why it was I was here. I had come outside to do this – my spells were always stronger when surrounded by natural earth, and I enjoyed being outdoors – but hadn't quite wanted to roam this far. _

_I hadn't applied for the job, my mentor had heard that Tower Grove were looking for a spells and rituals professor, and for some reason, best known to Nyx, wrote to them and told them to hire me. How they even knew who or where I was was a mystery to me, but, given that I liked teaching and the pay check was considerably bigger than other teaching jobs – primarily because of the increased risk of your pupils dying on you – I accepted. And hey presto, here I was. Apparently the youngest S&R professor in America, according to Pandeia and Diana, and most definitely showing it. I'd never had a problem facing up to authority before, but those two had made me feel so tiny and insignificant, without even intending to, I had quickly begun to wonder if I wasn't too young for this job after all._

_Still, now I was here, I needed to grow up and deal with it. I had a task to undertake, and I had to make sure I did it well. _

_So far I was enjoying it, however having said it was early days yet. Spells and Rituals isn't something you can teach to all fledglings, it depends on their affinities and some have a higher affinity for it than others. There were a few lads in my classes, but boys never have the knack for magic that girls do, and in other Houses as you progressed through the years you could see that all the boys had filtered out of S&R by the beginning of year four. It didn't come easily to most of the girls either, there were one or two with a similar affinity to me, and a few whose magical abilities were sidelined by their affinities. All vampyres have a magical potential, if you like. Some more than others, but we all have the ability to perform baseline spells. Spells aren't usually said in English, unless in prose, simple one word incantations are better for short sharp spells, and there is normally a way of doing it that appeals to you. Latin seems to work for everyone but often a native language works better, in my case Russian, but it varies from person to person. Seeing as this was prose, I happily sighed and stopped worrying about mispronouncing my Russian and ending up shattering all the classroom windows, as had happened before in one particularly memorable mishap._

_I had found the perfect place to cast my spell, put everything into position, and had started chanting, when all the peace and tranquillity I'd started with went up in a wisp of smoke. _

"_Move! You're in danger!"_

_Someone pushed me off my feet, and my spell ingredients went flying. It was – Oliver? What the? I was just about to get to my feet, and tell him how rude he was ruining my spell, and what was he doing in the middle of the forest? And, where was his full Mark?"_

_Oh Lord..._

_I'm dreaming aren't I?_

_Literally, just as the thought crossed my head, everything stopped. The air between him and I rippled, and began to glow eerily. I covered my eyes, and through a gap in my fingers I noticed another figure, male, but that was all I could tell. It was moving towards me, completely blocking my view of Oliver, until I realised that this apparition was also Oliver. But this one was older, Changed, wiser, and was smiling down at me. I opened my mouth to say his name, but I said something completely different._

"_You're him! The fledgling behind you. It's you... No, you're not the fledgling..."_

_When the apparition spoke, it was Oliver's voice that came out of its mouth. "You drew me, Anastasia. You should know who I am."_

_Anastasia? _

"_I drew you? But I..." my mouth repeated my spell's words, "How is this possible? You can't be Bryan Lankford! And how do you know my name?"_

_Bryan Lankford?_

"_You are so young. I'd forgotten." He said, bowing elegantly to me, "Anastasia, my own, my priestess, Bryan Lankford is exactly who you did draw. I am he." He chuckled warmly, "And I have not been called Bryan by anyone except you for a very long time."_

_Anastasia again. His own? His priestess? What was this? I remembered back to the time in the hospital, when he called me Anastasia, when he called me his own. That was the time he had also called me beautiful._

_My mouth continued. "I didn't_ literally_ mean to draw you. And you're old! No I don't mean _old_ old. I mean you're older than a fledgling. You're a Changed vampyre. Not an old one though."_

_He laughed. "You asked for the truth of me, and that is what you conjured, my own, this is who I will become in the future. Which is why I am, as you say, old and a vampyre, fully Changed. That fledgling over there, behind me, is who I am today. Younger yes, but rash and entirely too sure of himself." _

_I was bewildered. "Why do you know me? Why do you call me 'my own'?"_

"_I know you because you are my own, as I am yours. Anastasia, look into my eyes," he touched my face, but all I felt was a breath of air, "tell me truthfully what you see."_

_I did so, without meaning to. His sparkling brown eyes, lulling me gently like a lullaby, showed me deep into his soul. A soul that was alight with something very, very powerful. "I see a vampyre I could love." I said slowly, "But you're a Warrior, that's obvious and I can't-"_

_He interrupted me. "You see the vampyre you _do_ love."_

_That was when he kissed me. The spectre, the apparition, leant forwards and kissed me deeply, and unlike when he touched my face, I felt everything. In that moment he became solid, holdable, and so I held him. No matter what petty spells or spirits I could conjure, this was what real magic was. I moaned slightly when he broke away from me, and then I remembered. It was a dream – nothing in real life was that powerful._

"_My love, my own, I am a vampyre and a Warrior. I know it seems impossible right now, but I believe the truth is, to become the person you see – the man of kindness and strength, integrity and humour, wisdom and love – I need you. Without you, without us, I am only a shell of what I should be. I am the dragon without the man. Only you can make the man stronger than the dragon. Remember that when the young, rash _arrogant_ version of me attempts to drive you mad."_

_He began to back away from me, and I cried out._

"_Don't go." I managed to utter._

_He smiled. "I'm not going, I will never willingly leave you, my own. I'll be right here, growing and learning. Even though that may be difficult for you to believe sometimes. Give us a chance Anastasia. Be patient with me; we'll be worth it. Oh, and don't let me kill the bear. It wasn't going to harm you."_

_Kill the bear?_

Shit. I hate alarm clocks.

I slammed my hand down on the button and sighed. My eyes weren't open yet – I felt like a neonatal baby. What in the seven Hells was that? It had been Oliver and me but it was like it was in some other world. Well of course it was in another world it was a frickin' dream, although to be honest I've had weirder dreams.

Dragging myself out of bed – my sleeping habits had been somewhat erratic over the past couple of weeks, despite the fact I was supposed to be doing the night shift, I had ended up doing bits and bobs of both - and pulling whatever clothes I could find that were clean, I pulled the other dirty ones into a pile, gathered them up into my arms and taking them downstairs to wash before going back to school tomorrow.

Tomorrow was the first day of the summer term. Tomorrow, I had to be back in that hellhole of a school. I wiped my eyes – I'd have to pack all of my stuff again, I'd have to leave all of this behind and pretend it never happened. I felt sick just thinking about it. Maybe I wouldn't mind if I had somewhere to escape to in the evening like normal schools, or if I could come here during the daytime, but I had to live there, and be alone all the time. I took a good look around the house as I went, just in case there was something about it that I had missed before. I wanted to remember it as clearly as I could, every crack in every creaky floorboard. I wanted to be able to recall every little detail so I could think about it when I was at school and pretend I was here. I wasn't the only one moving back to school – Lucy had to be back for work too, and so hadn't been here for a while, and Spiridion had been here during the day but I presumed he'd left, as his car wasn't in the driveway. Out of the window it was a nasty day, gale forces and cold. It was May for Nyx's sakes. I suppose this is the North-East coast...

I found Oliver in the kitchen, sitting near the Aga and drinking tea. I noticed that there was another mug at the place opposite him, full and steaming, which I presumed could only be for me.

"Hey."

"Hi." He said, "Heard you coming down, made you some tea."

I dumped my pile of washing into the laundry basket, as the machine was still on its previous cycle. "Thanks." I said, sitting down opposite him and taking a sip. A shiver went down my spine. There was nothing like a good cup of tea by an Aga when all but a storm was raging outside.

"You packing?" he asked.

"Not yet. I've got some things to wash." I said, "I guess I've been, kinda putting it off."

"Why?"

"Because if I pack, I'll definitely be leaving."

"I imagine you'll be back." He said, lifting his mug to his lips.

"Really?"

He smiled. "Anastasie, you are welcome here any time." He said, "You've been a pleasure to live with. You've done yourself proud."

I felt heat rise to my cheeks. "Thank you."

"I'll miss you." He said quietly, "I'll still see you around school of course, but I'll miss you picking up the pieces every time I have a breakdown."

I smiled. "I'll miss picking up the pieces." I said. My eyes honed in on his Mark. It was so beautiful, so detailed. "Do I have to start calling you 'sir' again?"

He smirked. "Only when other people are listening." He drained the last drops from his mug.

I laughed. "When is Yianna ever not listening?"

"You'd be surprised." He said, replacing the mug on the table, "Yianna doesn't listen in to every conversation, every thought that ever crosses the mind of every fledgling, vampyre, ghost, cat, dog and seagull on the campus. If she did she'd be insane by now. Fledglings always for some reason presume that she's listening right here right now, but she really isn't. It's like, the computer management system we have. We have programmes that enable us to see the screens and histories of every user to use the House's internet connection, we don't employ people just to look at computer screens all day waiting for someone to do something wrong so we can march them to Yianna's office, normally, when someone does something wrong and someone complains about it, that's when we start checking."

I raised my eyebrows. "Really?"

He closed his. "Yeah. God why do I tell you these things?"

"I dunno." I said.

There was a short pause. "Will you be okay?" he asked me suddenly, "I mean you're okay when you're here but will you be okay at school, back with the likes of Declan White?"

I couldn't help but pull a bit of a face. "I don't know." I said, "He really shouldn't get to me, it's weird, I don't mind adults getting to me I can ignore it and brush it off but other fledglings... They just get under my skin and they make me feel uncomfortable in it. I kept having panic attacks before, I don't know if I would now."

"If they _ever _do _anything _to you, or _say_ anything untoward to you, you tell me." He said, looking me dead on in the eye, "I can have them doing laps of the hall and clap-press-ups until they drop!"

I giggled. "Oliver that's a bit much isn't it?"

"Is it?" he said, "I could have 'em roasting on a spit."

"Can I turn the spit?"

"You can have the spit." we both laughed gently, "Some kids are like vultures." He said more quietly, "They zone in on their prey when it's down. And, they aren't even civil enough to realise how much they're hurting people, they'll crack a joke to make themselves look better. They're like animals." He said, "That's not what I went into teaching for. To watch them peck a beautiful person like you to death."

I stared at him. "Did you just say I'm beautiful?"

In that small moment, Oliver seemed to realise his mistake, that his tongue had slipped slightly, but also within that moment, he raised his eyebrows like it was a very normal thing to say. "Well you are." He said, giving a small nod as if he'd just reassured a comment he'd made about the weather.

I was still staring at him, a small smile daring to creep onto my face with the sheer joy I felt. "No one's every said that to me before." I said, my voice little more than a whisper.

He snorted. "Well they should have." He paused again, and seemed to return to his mellow self, "I'm sorry, was that a little awkward?"

"A little."

"Sorry..." he said apologetically, "I shouldn't say things like that... Sorry..."

I heard the washing machine finish its cycle. "I'll go put my washing in." I said, getting up from the table and walking around the corner, my stomach full of butterflies. I still wasn't used to compliments, and compliments that came from Oliver especially, made me happy for hours, days. It was moments like these that made me as high as a kite when I thought about him. I remembered what his kiss on my hand felt like when he was in hospital, and then I remembered that I was dreaming about something that was impossible. I sighed – I was still allowed to think that he was a nice guy though wasn't I? I was allowed to think he was nice person, for sake of argument? He was nice, bless him, very eligible chap. He deserved someone though, it was just that that someone would never, ever without a shadow of a doubt, be me. I could accept that. That was life.

It was getting to be getting on for the kids' bedtime soon. Trying to stagger bedtime so the older ones could stay up later was a nightmare, because they all wanted to stay up until the same times. So, thinking I'd try and make life easier for myself, I started with Ellie. Normally Fran, her twin shared the room, but since she'd become ill Fran had started sleeping on the floor of James' room for peace and quiet.

"Hey Ellie." I said, poking my head around the door, "Whatcha doing?"

Ellie had a tiara and veil on her tiny head, as well as a menagerie of long necklaces that were much too big for her and draped down by her waist. "Playing dress-up." She said, clutching a naked Barbie and filtering through the collection of dresses on her bed, "What do you think? Princess, or fairy?"

I sat down at the end of the bed, taking care not to disrupt the careful arrangement of tiny garments, "How 'bout a fairy princess?"

"Perfect!" she grinned, taking the dress from the one and the wings from the other, "Why don't you play more often?"

"Huh?"

"You're always working. You need some playtime." She said, "Can you make me the Amazon Queen?"

"Sure." I said, picking up another doll, "You know sometimes I can't play." I said, "I'm sorry I haven't played with you much."

"Oliver says you're going away." She said.

"You know what school's like." I said, "I have to go."

"But can't you come back here in the evening like we do?" she said.

I shook my head. "I can't." I said, "It's a special school and they won't let me."

"But we don't want you to go." She said, "Not even Oliver wants you to go. I tried to get him to make you stay but he won't."

"When did he say that?"

"Earlier." She said, grinning, "He doesn't like playing Barbies but I made him."

"What else did he say about me?"

"He said you were a lovely person and that he was going to miss you lots and lots." She said, fixing a tiara on her Barbie.

"Well you tell your brother I'm going to miss him lots and lots too." I said, "And you be good for him when I'm not here. He's very special and he needs you to be good."

"He said that."

"Said what?"

"He said you were special." She said, pulling a face, "It's like he likes you or something."

I laughed. "I'm sure he doesn't." I said, "Right!" I clapped my hands, "Bed."

"Hey no!" Ellie moaned, "No way!"

"Yes way!" I said, picking up the cardboard box she kept the dolls in, "They'll still be here tomorrow."

"Pff. But I wanna play with them now." She said, pulling a face and folding her arms in a huff.

"Tomorrow." I said, everyone else is going to bed and it's only fair that you do to. I'll see you tomorrow yeah?"

"Fine." She said, remaining in her stubborn hunch. "Night."

I grinned as I turned the light out – she often did this, what small child ever wanted to go to bed on time? I could come back ten minutes later and usually the girl would be snoring. Well, that was easy. Now for the others...

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

When I open my mouth, it seems it is only to replace whichever foot was previously there.

Once and still a favourite saying of Demeter's, now it seems to be one I should be using with reference to myself a lot more often.

I was such an idiot. Such. An. Idiot. Why, why, _why_ do I do this to myself? Poor Anastasie, she must think I'm losing my marbles! What am I _doing_ saying things like that? She's my dependent, my pupil, I've looked after her, it's my job to look after her. Not only have I abandoned that responsibility to the point where she has had to look after me, I've lost my sanity to the point where I've started making inappropriate comments! And then I had the audacity to let my eyes wander to her arse as she went? I growled in fury and shook my head to try and shake some sense into it. What the fuck was I thinking? Oh Jesus I was well and truly screwed! Indefinitely and infinitely screwed. Shit shit shit shit shit! She could probably complain and I could get struck off!

I sighed and inwardly punished myself again and again as I finished my cup of tea and leant backwards on my chair. Tomorrow it was back to school for all of us, me included. I didn't like leaving Ellie here, even if I knew she was in Spiridion's capable hands. I just didn't like leaving any of them full stop. But I had to be careful, I had already had too much time off work and if I wasn't careful they would stop paying my sick-leave – you could only have so much a year and I must have been drawing a fine line – Anastasie was supposed to go back to school last week but due to the workload and me not being healthy – Yianna of course had no idea Spiridion was helping me, and that'd the way it's going to stay – there was no way I could get her back there. I worried about her there, despite what I said earlier being cringeworthy, there was truth to every word of it. Anastasie, who could deal with adults easily, but couldn't handle interacting with kids her own age, almost to the point where it was a phobia. It was a medical condition, one she had been diagnosed with long before I met her, the name escapes me at this current moment, but I was so pleased with the progress she had made over this Easter, I was terrified that she would relapse and do something stupid again. The worst possible place for her, of course, would be boarding school. I dearly hoped Yianna would cut her some slack, instead of locking her away in isolation for weeks again.

Closing my eyes as I reclined I realised just how tired I was, and Bedfordshire was pretty much imminent, Anastasie was up and ready to take over the night-shift, I could go to bed and sleep until morning. But first, I'd go and say goodnight to the kids.

As I did so, I passed Anastasie on the landing. "Is Ellie asleep?" I asked her.

"Unlikely." She said knowingly as she passed me and headed back down the stairs.

I knocked on Ellie's door. "Ellie?" I said, pushing the door slightly so I could peep through. Ellie and Fran always had the door unlatched and just to, so that it wasn't completely dark in there – their nightlight wasn't the best. "Are you awake?"

The room was completely silent. Maybe she was pretending to be asleep. I went in and saw her lying there flat on her back, her arms slightly abducted (yes that is the correct word for it) from her body. Maybe she was pretending to be dead – she'd done that plenty of times before, actually the first time when I was home for Christmas in fifth year at uni I fell for it and she's never quite let me live it down. "Ellie." I said, "You're not funny."

Still she didn't move. I put my hand on her shoulder and shook her playfully. "Ellie?"

Something was wrong. Her entire body was limp... I placed the back of my hand just above her nose and mouth for a few moments. Shit and the reason it was so silent was because she wasn't breathing!

I grabbed my mobile from my pocket and dialled 999.


	18. Artificial Light

_**Scarborough Fair**_

_**

* * *

**_

**Me: Wow look at me, 18 chapters! Enjoy!**

* * *

_Lucy _

_

* * *

_

I'm at the desk,

I'm at the desk,

Everybody look at me,

'Cause I'm sitting at the desk,

I'm at the desk,

I'm at the desk,

Take a good hard look,

At the mother-fucking desk...

Ooh hellooo...

It was that guy again. That vamp murse, nurse. Whatever he was. What was he doing back here? Picking up the entire drugs room? I very quickly sat on my copy of _OK!_ and looked like I was doing something useful.

"Hi there." He said, putting his hands in the pockets of his black scrubs as he reached the desk. The mother-fucking desk! Man I love The Lonely Island.

"Oh." I smiled, "It's you again."

"Yep." He replied, "Me again."

"Can I help you?" I asked, "No more metronidazole?"

"Actually no, I was told to come here and request some patient history from yourselves, one of our clients hasn't been treated since he was in school, so if you could pass those over to us when you have a spare moment that would be great."

"We normally fax those through." I said. Medical histories weren't thrown around like pieces of scrap paper. We didn't disclose them without scanning through them first. I couldn't just give it to him, surely he knew that.

"I know." He said, shrugging, "You can fax it through, I was just letting you know we needed it." he passed me an envelope over the counter, "Inside is the patient's NHS number as well as the details of where to send it and which doctor is requesting."

I took the envelope. "And I suppose you were just passing by with this in your hand?" I asked him flatulently. In a normal hospital, yes, not beneath Scarborough Castle.

"Why are you sitting on a magazine?"

"It's good for my posture."

He snorted and grinned. "You don't, remember me, by any chance?"

I shook my head. "Erm... no?"

"I was in third year when you were in first year?" he said, "The name's Kenneth Pligh."

Hmm... Nope, it didn't ring a bell. He definitely wasn't a fresh rep, I'd have known him otherwise. I shook my head again.

"I remembered you from ages ago, you were coming out of a lecture and dropped your notes everywhere!"

Damn, someone saw that? I laughed. "Haha. You, saw that?"

"Yep." He said.

I laughed again. "Haven't you got work to do?"

"Actually I was gonna ask if you wanted to get a cup of coffee sometime." He said, "But er, I have work to do."

"Well..." I said. I looked at him – he was actually kinda fit, chestnut brown hair, dark eyes, just taller than me. Actually, I'm tempted. "I'd..."

Suddenly Dr. Sex was standing in front of me, his ID card very nearly dangling in my face. How does he appear like that? When it happens I can almost hear the sound of screeching brakes.

"Lucy." He said, "I need you to go and e-mail the following..." he put a list on the desk. The mother-fucking desk... "To tell them their bloodwork is back from the lab and can you book them all into appointments with me to discuss the results? Also I need..." As I tried to peer over Dr. Sex's shoulder at Kenneth without looking too obviously like I wasn't listening, and just saw his back as he disappeared behind the door. Damn it. Bloody hell. Mother-fucking... Desk!

"Lucy?" he said, snapping me back to reality.

"Yes?" I said, in a slightly higher-pitched voice than normal.

"Will you be okay to do that?"

I wish I'd heard the last three things that were on his list. "Fine." I replied. Yes. That was the right answer.

Several bajillion hours later, after I had contacted the bloodwork patients, disinfected the waiting room, tidied the consulting rooms and put a load of bedlinen to wash – apparently those had been the other three things that were on his list – I sat back down at reception, and logged onto the infirmary's computer system. I decided that I would like a coffee with that fit murse. Nurse. Scrolling down the list of contacts that we had, I could only find a few for Scarborough General Hospital. That was bloody brilliant, and I couldn't even remember what he said his surname was! It wasn't like I didn't know it, it was like he told me, and I effing forgot it didn't I? Ah-ha! That piece of paper I made him sign when he picked up the metronidazole, where is it? Patting my hands against the desk, I racked my brains. Where the Hell would that have gone? If I were a bored medical receptionist without a sex-life, where would I hide it? Get real Lucy, you are a bored medical receptionist without a sex-life. And you still don't know where the fundibles it is. Wow, I just made a new word... Stock file, stock file, maybe someone put it on the computer? I typed 'metronidazole' into the search, and then clicked on the stock file. There we are. Metronidazole. Systematic name: 2-(2-methyl-5-nitro-1_H_-imidazol-1-yl)ethanol. In stock: Five. Batch number: A033JP2Z-B. Expiry date: 31/03/2158. Stock record: order for eight drips to House of Night Scarborough Hospital on 05/02/2157, order placed by Ezriel Kember RVpN, stock received 06/02/2157. Stock out: 1x Metronidazole drip at request of Dr. Needham on behalf Scarborough General Hospital, collected on 03/04/2157 on behalf of Scarborough General Hospital by K. Pligh RVpN.

Bingo.

I was on the phone in seconds. _"Hello Scarborough General Hospital, can I help you?"_

"Hi there, my name's Lucy Cavanagh I'm a nurse at the House of Night Hospital, I have an enquiry about a request made for a patient history from yourselves?"

The woman paused for a moment. _"That's fine, can I ask which doctor made the request?" _

I pulled out the patient information request from the envelope I'd slit open earlier and read down the paper. "Dr. Abduhl."

She paused again while I presumed she checked her computer. _"Ah yes, his phone is currently engaged, but would you like me to take a message?"_

"Actually I was hoping to speak to one of your RVpNs dealing with the case, I have the name K. Pligh in front of me?"

"_Alright, he's not currently contactable but can I pass your contact details to him for him to give you a ring when he's free?" _

"That would be brilliant." I said. Would he even call me when I'd so blatantly ignored him? I gave her the phone number of the hospital, "And my name is Nurse Cavanagh."

"_That's fantastic, I'll pass on that information." _

"That's great, thank you."

"_Alright then, bye bye."_

"Bye."

I put the phone down. Well that was nicely faked. I hoped he'd call me back. I so hoped he'd call me back. I was really annoyed at Dr. Cilian for this, he shouldn't have been so rude, after teaching us that clients always came first, he then interrupted one point blank when I was talking to one, albeit not about serious matters, but still. If I'd been taking an emergency call he'd have expected me to put the phone down to listen to him! Well, maybe he wasn't that much of a drama queen but still... It was rude.

The phone rang. It was an external call. God the bloody thing rings off the hook!

"Good morning Scarborough House of Night Hospital?"

"_Ah yes hello, I'm looking to speak to a Nurse Cavanagh?"_

I tidied the papers on my desk a little. "Speaking."

"_This is Kenneth Pligh from Scarborough General Hospital returning your call about a request for a patient history."_

I grinned and pinned the phone to me ear with my shoulder. "That was quick."

I heard him laugh. _"I happened to be checking my messages."_

"Listen, I'm sorry about not finishing our conversation earlier." I said.

"_Wasn't your fault."_ He said.

"And, I was just calling, to say I really would like that cup of coffee sometime."

I could almost hear him smile and I felt giddy. _"Great."_ He said, _"When does your shift end?"_

* * *

_Anastasie_

_

* * *

_

It was three forty-seven pm. The next day, if you're wondering. That was how long it was before we were allowed to see Ellie.

I wondered very briefly if this was the extent to which the situation could get worse – why was the world like this? Why did Ellie have to suffer like this? What had she ever done to anybody?

The doctors had worked on her for hours, even Oliver hadn't been allowed to stay with her for most of it. He'd had to wait outside while they fought to lower the intracranial pressure and the respiratory failure. I wanted to strangle that doctor who saw her last – surely he could see – couldn't he tell this would happen? Ah maybe it wasn't him, she was fine, just minutes, _minutes_ before Oliver found her, she was up and playing and smiling and... Argh!

My brain couldn't process this anymore. It was getting under my skin – the anger I felt at all of this. And I had had to tell the others what was happening, as Oliver went in the ambulance with her, and had stayed in the hospital since. I'd called Spiridion - I couldn't do this by myself. I hadn't slept that day at all – how could I sleep? How could I even contemplate going to bed? Finally I persuaded him to stay with the kids while I went to the hospital, in broad daylight, wearing dark shades and my hood up. I know I was supposed to be going back to school. I was supposed to be back at school in three hours! I snorted to myself – there was no way it was going to be happening, there were more important things at the moment. I hated how the walls of paediatrics were covered in illustrations, ranging from your well-known cartoon characters to other landscapes portraying sunny hills with butterflies and unicorns. I'm sure the kids think it's lovely, but to me, a hospital was a sincere place, it felt like someone somewhere was taking the piss.

I opened the door to the hospital room, the hot polystyrene of the cup full of tea starting to feel uncomfortable in my hand. I found Oliver sitting next to her bed, his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees, exactly as I had expected to find him. This was the first time I'd seen him since I saw those ambulance doors close on them both. His eyes were so red and puffy it looked like was ill himself. His cheeks were also red, sore from the tears he'd been crying. He looked up and saw me, removing his head from his hands, but said nothing. What more was the world going to do to him? I bit my lip – what could I say to him? What could I possibly say to change the fact that his beloved little sister was at death's door? Absolutely nothing. The girl was hooked up to mechanical ventilation, and out cold.

"I thought you might like a drink." I said finally, my slow steps towards him echoing off the stiff carpet. I passed him the cup and then took a step back again.

He remained silent for a moment, before seeming to mentally slap himself around the face. "Anastasie..." he said, his voice quiet and defeated, but somehow in awe, like he'd just seen an epiphany, "Thank you... I... W...What are you doing here?"

He sounded, almost like he couldn't believe that I was here. That I had the audacity, perhaps? Maybe he wanted to be alone for a bit... I nodded to acknowledge his thanks, and began to leave him alone – he probably wanted some space right now. Just as my hand reached the door handle, he saw me.

"Please stay..." he said, his voice wavering and in turn shaking me. I turned again, and returned to stand at the end of the bed. There was only one chair for visitors, which he was occupying. I wanted to walk up and place my hand on his shoulder, or give him some form of support, and at the same time, I didn't want to be patronising. He had my sympathy but to give him my pity would be rude. He looked from me to her, his broken gaze hitting me like lightning. I tried to soften my own a little, but still his red and tired eyes continued to hold mine. Like he was thinking about saying something to me and just didn't say it. He looked for a moment like he was going to cry again, before slamming the cup of hot tea down on the bedside table and getting up from the chair. I stood frozen as he crossed the distance between us in two easy strides and threw his arms around me. I froze for a moment as my brain caught up with what was happening and the general awkwardness, and then my arms wrapped around him in an action that I can only describe as a reflex, and I held onto him as he struggled to stop himself from shaking beneath my arms.

"Anastasie why are you still here?" he said, sniffing, "What are you doing? Bringing me tea?"

"I'm being here for her." I said, "And for you." I let my hand rub his back gently in an attempt to calm the quivering, and it seemed to work, but his voice was still just as frantic.

"Why?" he said, "Why? Why are you here at nearly four in the afternoon when you haven't slept today? Why are you always here?"

"Because I care!" I told him, "Because I can't leave!"

"Why are you still doing things for me when you don't need to? Why do you think I deserve that?"

"You were the inspiration." I told him as his body still gently shook beneath my hands. I leant my head against his neck and kept rubbing his back gently, tracing patterns with my fingers, it seemed to have the desired effect of soothing him, relaxing him, "The epiphany."

He sighed. "Thank you..." he breathed onto my neck, ""Thank you... For everything... Thank you..."

"It's okay..." I said, tears coming to my eyes at the raw display of emotion. "It's okay..."

His grip on me slackened and I pulled back from him a little, began to open my eyes. I hadn't pulled back from him as much as I had thought, my cheek brushed his, and suddenly I was looking at him, and I realised I wasn't breathing. I released my breath slowly, we had got closer, I leant in a little and my nose brushed his cheek, the contact rebuffing gently me like a softly elastic surface, but then he did the same, so nearly touching me. It was unfair to say that it was him who kissed me or that it was me who kissed him, our mouths just silently met at the same time, my eyes closed and we remained like that for about four seconds. I couldn't breathe... We broke apart, but I couldn't pull away, I was attracted to him like a magnet. Suddenly I realised he was going to kiss me again and I met him halfway, his grasp on me tightened again and a lightning bolt shot through me as he kissed me deeply, our bodies pressed firmly together, his was warm and still I wanted to be closer to him. I didn't care what the consequences were, and for a moment, neither did he. Right then, a little spark somewhere very deep inside me ignited, somewhere I never even knew existed before. It blew up into a thousand pieces and travelled through me like an electric shock. I had never imprinted with anyone before, and I certainly hadn't imprinted with Oliver, but if I was going to try and imagine what it felt like to be connected to someone on that level, this is the feeling I would have described. We should stop, it wasn't right, but it was like something was tying us together, pushing us from behind, it felt so good neither of us wanted to resist. The comfort, the support, the companionship I wanted to give him that I couldn't express in words, I could express all of it through this kiss. What were we doing? Were we doing this because we were so emotionally unstable at the moment that we'd lost all traces of our somewhat questionable sanity? Oh God... What did I feel for him now? Did I just want to be friends, or was I thinking of more? Was I thinking of more because we were kissing, because we'd broken a barrier between us? Whenever it had crossed my mind before I would accept how wonderful he was, but that I was a fledgling, and that was that. But did he want me? Despite that? He was an emotional train-wreck, and he was kissing me because he felt confused. And did I want him? I asked myself this: Did I want him to stop kissing me now? The answer of course was no. I was so confused...

Why did I feel so awful when he pulled away? His arms slid from me and suddenly I was cold. He couldn't say anything, neither could I. All we could do was look at each other, eyes alive and longing. He took two steps back from me, his face portraying the utter disbelief of what he had done, but there was an element of fascination there, like his own actions fascinated him rather than disgusted him. Wordlessly, he turned away from me and resumed his seat next to Ellie.

"You're confused." I said breathlessly, "You're stressed."

"I'm sorry." He said quietly, the weight of his actions suddenly weighing his voice down. He sighed. "I shouldn't have done that."

I shook my head. "It's okay." I said.

"No, Anastasie, it isn't." He said firmly, more to himself than to me, "I truly am sorry I should never have..."

"Oliver I don't care." I said, interrupting him, "I really don't, I don't hold it against you or anything just... Forget about it. It never happened."

"I haven't been anywhere near as hard on myself as I should have been." He said, "I kick myself, again, and again, and again and again but I never seem to knock any damn sense into myself!"

"Oliver..."

"I'm such an idiot..." he said, burying his head again, "I didn't see, that I was getting too close to you... Or rather I saw it... And didn't do enough to stop it..."

"Oliver it's fine..." I said, "I'm not going to sue you or anything." I said, lightly joking.

"I completely forgot who exactly you were..." he said, "I knew it but I didn't feel it. I had, no sense of boundaries. I am... far too dependent on you."

"You gave me my life back..." I said, "I will always be good to you, no matter what."

He smiled a little. "It is you, who has given me my life back." He said, "I thank you for that. But, this can't go on."

"I know."

"You need to go and pack your things for school."

I blinked. "I can't go back to school now..." I told him, "I can't just leave you here with all this."

"Yianna will have my head if you're not back on campus tonight." He told me, the emotion void from his voice now, "You've eluded your demons, now it's time to face them."

"Oliver you can't do this on your own." I said, my own voice almost a whisper, "It'll break you."

"Let it break me." He said. I felt a rush of dread – he was giving up, "Dear Lord, something's out there to break me..." a tear fell down his cheek, "It may even have already succeeded."

"It hasn't." I said, "It won't. You're so strong..."

"I'm not some kind of super-vamp, Anastasie." He said, "I may not be human but what I think, feel, that's all human, my life, what I do, all of it. I may not be human, but I am a mortal."

"Then you need help."

"I have help." He said, "You _need _to go back to school."

"You know what?" I told him, "I like being close to you." I said, "Every single day, I feel so happy, so belated, that a person like you can trust a person like me. I feel like a functioning being when I'm with you." I blinked a tear out of my eye, "And for the first time in my life, I feel like part of a family." I said, "And now I feel like that I don't want to have to let it go."

"You're not letting it go." He said, "I learned this when I first went away from home. It looks like the end of an era, like your life will never be the same again where you feel the most secure, but it's not like you're never coming back." He explained, "It's not like it's all disappearing. It'll still be here in summer, and well after that."

"I know..." I said, "But it's having to leave at a bad time."

He smiled, but it was a small smile through pain. "I thought I had everything in my life under control." He said, "I thought I could handle everything it had to throw at me..." he looked at Ellie, "And when I couldn't... You've looked after the kids, you've cooked cleaned washed swept mucked-out groomed and fed! And you..." he swallowed, "You gave me company." He turned away and back again, "I've been so wrapped up in work at school and work at home I've not even had time to realise that I miss being around people. There's no privacy in that house whatsoever and still I'm lonely. I never cared before, I'd be lonely for them forever if I had to be, but then when you came I remembered what it was like to not be lonely and enjoy it, without feeling that by doing so I'm letting someone somewhere down." He sighed, "But life goes on."

I heard the door open behind me and turned around. It was just a nurse – she was a fairly young girl, blonde, she reminded me in many ways of Lucy, except I imagined this girl could be much more efficient. I saw then that she was a red vamp, not a normal one. That was weird, you didn't see too many of them. She was followed by a young chap, human, brown hair, dark eyes, nice looking, it took me a while to clock that he was a nurse as well. A male nurse. Don't see too many of them either.

"I'm sorry I hope I'm not interrupting." She said with a huge smile on her face.

"No not at all." Said Oliver, "Come on in."

"My name's Rie." She said, "And this is my colleague Kenneth."

The red vamp nurse girl looked to me for a moment, then to Oliver, and then back again, she did it so swiftly it was barely plausible to think that it was weird, but she looked just the same as she straightened Ellie's pillow and checked the mechanical ventilation machine.

"Ah yes." Said the man called Kenneth, as he checked Ellie's chart, "You're a teacher at the House of Night aren't you?"

Oliver raised his head, and his eyebrows discerningly. "Yes."

"Working in this department you hear rumours, I heard they had a new Fencing Master."

"If they don't fire me for too much time off taken." He said. There wasn't a shred of emotion in his voice, it was completely devoid of all feeling, like he'd give anything for them to just shut up and go away. Kenneth seemed to register this, and put the chart back on the end of the bed.

"Listen..." he said, "It's been a long day. It might be a good idea to go home and get some sleep."

"I won't sleep." Said Oliver, "I can't."

"Mr. Pendragon, I assure you that we will stay with Ellie twenty-four seven. We'll look after her, I promise." He said, "You'll worry about her, it doesn't matter if you're here or if you're at home. Go home, rest, eat. Regenerate."

"He's right Oliver." I said. "Come on, I'll drive."

Oliver looked at me with sullen, eyes, before looking back to Ellie, and then back to me again. He got up from his seat, his muscles stiff and tight, and reached for his long black coat. I watched as he put it on slowly, remembering how he had shaken under my palms just minutes ago. His hand sank into the right hand pocket, and he withdrew in it something clinky that shined under the artificial light – his car keys. He extended his arm, and placed them very delicately in my palm, like they were Ellie's life itself.

"Let's go home."


	19. Loco Parentis

_**Scarborough Fair**_

_**

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**_

_When he has done and finished his work,_

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,_

_Ask him to come for his cambric shirt,_

_For then he'll be a true love of mine._

_

* * *

_

_Yianna_

_

* * *

_

A phone call that I received from Oliver at five o' clock that evening changed my plans completely. I had been in bed when he rang, the bright whole screen of my work mobile burned into my eyes like a chemical as I looked at it to press the pick-up button. The next half an hour saw me up, showered and dressed, and ready to go and pick up Anastasie from Oliver's house in my car. What quite was going on in that household I had no idea, all I knew was that I couldn't afford to keep hiring locums and pay Oliver for sick/circumstantial leave. I felt truly sorry for him, shit had really hit the fan for him lately, and I doubt that having to deal with a suicidal girl had helped him in the slightest. However, the people who've seen her tell me she's much improved for the escape, I knew I would be very interested to see how it's affected her. I think it was a little bit like a moment of truth for all of us to see if she had changed, and how. Oliver does have a way with kids, and if anyone can put some good sense into her head then he can.

As I drew up and looked at that old farmhouse I never would have imagined the troubles inside its walls if I hadn't known. It was like a fairytale place this. One of the most idyllic places you could dream of growing up in. Gorgeous, of course, the entire outside grounds was majorly overgrown and unkempt, I doubted Oliver had time to do anything, or the money to hire someone to do it. I estimated in my head how much it must cost to run this place, per month, per year. It was a pretty hefty sum. Oliver had inherited a lot of money from his father last year and I was paying him close to ninety grand a year, however I remember Oliver telling that seeing as he had been privately educated and in the sake of fairness between siblings, wanted them privately educated from year seven onwards. And from that view, money was probably tight. I could relate.

The Sun wouldn't be properly down for hours but the car had blacked out windows. I got out and unlocked the boot in anticipation of a large suitcase, and went to knock on the thick wooden door. It opened within seconds, quicker than I thought it would, and I saw Oliver face to face for the first time in a month. He looked awful. I leave him with a troubled and anorexic teenage girl and she somehow passes the disease to him?

"Come in." He said, his voice low and stuffy like he had a bad cold.

"How are you?"

"I've been better." He said, "These things happen. She'll be okay."

I dearly hoped he was right as the silence in what I would have expected to be a house full of noisy children hit me. "Where's Anastasie?"

"I'll go and get her." He said, heading for the stairs, "Have a seat Yianna, make yourself at home."

* * *

_Oliver_

_

* * *

_

I actually can't believe she's going. And at this precise moment in time I'm wondering what I'm doing actually not believing that she's going, like in the back of my head I'll never see her again. What am I doing? She's at the House of Night, I work there. I'll see her every day for the rest of her days there. I'll probably go back to work and get accused of favouritism – fine, yes, she's my favourite, for obvious reasons. My life's been turned upside down since she's been here but not by her. I blinked and shook myself to, knocking on her room door and waiting for her answer.

"Come in."

I opened the door. "Hey, Yianna's downstairs for you."

"I heard her car pull up." She said, not looking at me as she put the last of her things in her bag. She hadn't brought much, I don't think she even had much, and what she wore wasn't what you'd expect to see modern teenagers wearing. Mostly jeans, not ripped or torn, very plain bootcut style, and fairly plain tops and shirts. Pretty conservative really, for a Bristolian. I laughed inwardly, I don't think she was any more a Bristolian than I was a Yorkshireman. She was quiet. "I'm, still kinda putting it off really."

"I know it's difficult to see it as a good thing. Just think this time next year you might already be Changed by now."

"Or dead."

I sat down on the bed next to where she knelt on the floor. "Ninety-eight percent of Change Rejections occur to fledglings less than two years in." I told her, sounding like the proverbial professor again, "Because at that point your body is more likely to reject the physiological changes because at that point you're still more human than vamp, and after the first two years, you're over half way through and more vamp than human. And the chances of you rejecting three years in are next to nothing." I smiled, "And then you're free."

"No matter how I try..." she said, still not looking at me, "I can never be free of myself." She paused, "And it is me. It is me that's the screw-up."

"No." I told her, "It _was _you. Past tense. It's a new start. Just be you, whatever 'you' may be."

"When are you coming back to work?" she asked me.

"I don't know." I said, "As soon as Ellie's out of hospital I guess."

"Oh, I nearly forgot." She said, getting to her feet and walking to her chest of drawers. I saw what she was reaching for before she had even laid a finger on it – on top of the piece of furniture lay a floppy, soft tog dog, with dingy areas from having not been washed and tousled ears. I looked at it with fond eyes – it was Louey. Ellie never went anywhere without Louey. Anastasie brought him over to me like he might break beneath her fingers. "I thought she'd want him when she wakes up."

I stood up and took the floppy dog from her, resisting the urge to hug it myself. She didn't move for another moment, before zipping her bag up and getting to her feet. "Guess I'd better not keep Yianna waiting." She said, putting on her coat, "Give them my love won't you?"

I wanted to hug her again, but decided in light of recent events that it would probably be best not to, and especially not with my boss and practical mind-reader downstairs.

She smiled at me painfully. "Come on." She said, wrapping her arms around me and drawing me into a hug. Our bodies collided and I froze. She noticed, I could tell, but she didn't seem to mind and lent her head against my collar bone gently. I returned her embrace somewhat gingerly, as once again I just relaxed beneath it. I heard her whisper '_thank you_' into my ear and suddenly the inside of me felt weak, like I had when I kissed her.

I initiated the separation and patted her gently on the back. "See you Anastasie."

She smiled. "Bye Oliver."

And with that, she was gone, and all my connection with the ground with her. I sat down on the bed again, face to face with Louey, and my conscience.

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

I heard footsteps coming down the stairs, light, neat, they were female. I got up from my seat on the sofa and got my car keys out of my pocket.

"Hello there." I said, as I saw Anastasie come down the stairs. Good Lord the girl's put on some weight! Now she actually looks normal. She looked bright, not at all gaunt, she has light in her eyes again.

"Evening Yianna." She said, "I'm sorry you had such an early start."

And she's even making conversation. Good job Oliver, I'll be sending them to you more often. "That's alright, I quite like the early evening. Is he coming back down?"

"I thought he might but clearly he isn't." She said as she heaved her bag out of the front door. I unlocked the boot for her to dump it in and shut it after her.

Getting into the car, I waited for her to shut the door and put her seatbelt on and put my sunglasses on as I did so. "So how was your Easter?" I asked her as I turned on the ignition and backed the car around.

She smiled. "The best I've ever had."

"What have you been doing?"

"Helping, mostly, housework, babysitting, getting on with my own work."

"I heard you held down the fort quite well when Oliver was in hospital." I said, "I just want to say how proud I am."

She smiled. "Thanks." She replied, "It was strange actually, I concentrated on something other than myself for a change. Did me good."

"Brilliant." I said, "I've been talking to Dr. Cilian regarding your accommodation, and he agrees that it would probably be a good idea for you to remain in the isolation room for a few weeks." I could sense a mingled silent response of disappointment and gladness. "Just so they can monitor you a little more easily, and you'll be able to get some peace and quiet up there if the others have a go at you, no?"

She blinked as she looked out of the window, not wanting to look at me. "That's fine."

"Are you okay?" I asked somewhat meekly, trying not to take my eyes off the road too much, as it was difficult to analyse her behaviour in short glances. "Listen..." I continued, genuinely wanting to make her feel better, "I'm sorry." I said slowly, "That all that before went unnoticed."

"It wasn't your fault." She said simply.

"Yeah it was." I replied, "All of us are supposed to be in loco parentis for you, and we failed to notice that you felt like that."

"It wasn't obvious." She said, "It's nobody's fault but my own."

"They won't do it again." I reassured her, "Those kids. I had severe words with them before the end of term. They know if they do I'll know."

She gave a very discreet smile. "Thanks." She said, still leaning her head against the glass of the window but this time not concentrating quite so much on what lay beyond it. "But it's not just them." She paused and wet her lip, lowering her head slightly, "Being in that house showed me what it was like to have a family that cared." I listened, the sound of my tyres against the tarmac a quiet background sound, "I've been looking out for myself all these years and..." she looked up out of the window, not once making eye-contact with me, "I've realised there's more to life than myself."

* * *

_Lucy_

* * *

Neither Kenneth nor I finished our shifts until late evening, but by then most of the nice little cafés in Scarborough had been shut for hours. Stupid working hours. Especially in a town where there's a House of Night, some of these places could really do with the extra custom. Pity really. Sure there were loads of bars around that were open, but bars really lacked their appeal when as a vamp you couldn't actually get drunk. Not on alcohol anyway.

In fact, such was the situation, that the only place that served coffee and that was open, without having to go for a three course meal as well, was McDonalds.

Don't laugh. It's not polite. I love a good Maccy D's myself and I certainly didn't have the dosh right now to head to somewhere nicer. Anyway, that's where I agreed to meet him in the end, and I have a craving for one of those Terry's Chocolate Orange McFlurrys!

Ordering myself a large Big Mac meal and the McFlurry, yes, I'm a fatty. Oh, and the coffee too. I thought that at least if he stood me up then I could just go home and sleep, having already knocked off the binge-eating part. McDonalds was pretty empty tonight, having said it was getting on for nine. Where were all the drunk people? Seriously, does nobody go out on a Sunday night? I supposed maybe not.

Ah yes! He hasn't stood me up! Haha score Lucy! I waited for him to order and sit down.

"This is very cool." He said as he put his tray on the table and dropped into the seat opposite me.

"Er, this is very cheap." I said, sipping my coffee.

"And that is a plus." He said, grinning, "How was your day?"

"Average." I replied, "The doctor had me doing all these chores that they're supposed to hire cleaners for." I stuffed fries in my mouth, "Oh and by the way, I have a question for you: Why on Earth would a human want to become an RVpN?" he raised an eyebrow, "I'm sorry it's just you really don't see anyone involved in the vamp world who isn't a vamp. People don't touch it with a ten foot barge pole."

He leant forward slightly, as if it was going to drive his point across. "A couple of religious fanatics won't touch you with said ten foot barge pole, and exactly the same goes for all the other freaks in this world, the gays, the lesbians, the trannies, black people, white people, Asian people, Middle-Eastern people, the minorities, the majorities too actually, the gypos, the hoodies, the list goes on. The rest of us that aren't religious fanatics, well we don't really mind you. In fact we think you're kinda hot."

I smiled. "Do you now?"

He smirked. "Oh yes." He said, "It's such an interesting world, one we wish we were all part of, apart from the likelihood of the death."

"Do you wish you'd been Marked?"

"I dunno." He said, fiddling with his coffee cup, "The idea of a long life sounds pretty good to me, I don't think I'd have minded, but I wasn't Marked so it didn't matter. But when I was a kid I knew others who were ill-treated, abused, some just had nasty parents, some had religious parents, so many of them waited for the year they turned sixteen, waiting desperately for Nyx to Mark them and take them away. It never happened to most of them."

"That's sad." I said, "I wish working with fledglings was as good as being one."

"Why'd you work there? Come to Scarborough General, we've got a shortage of RVpNs."

"The House of Night pays well." I replied, "Given that your patients are twenty times more likely to die on you for no reason whatsoever. Pays off the old student loan. It's worse for the teaching staff I think, they all have to do some kind of medical training before they're allowed to start, but they're not used to all the death."

"But they've been in Houses of Night as pupils." He said.

"Yeah but it happens when they feel they're responsible, no one should have to die in there."

"Two nurses and we're already talking about death." He chuckled.

"You're right I'm sorry."

"Speaking of work..." he said, taking a bite out of his Big Mac – ha, he ordered the same thing as me, "I saw that guy that's new at the House of Night today, what's his name...?"

"Oliver Pendragon?"

"That's the one." He said.

"Why?"

"His little sister's had meningitis for the last month, went into respiratory failure yesterday."

As I lifted my Big Mac to my mouth, I promptly lowered it again. "Jesus..." I said, "Is she okay?"

"Just about stable." He said, "But it's not looking good."

"Shit." I said, putting my Big Mac back down in the box.

"You know the kid?"

I wiped my fingers on a napkin. "Oliver had a car accident a few weeks ago, you probably know about it he was admitted to you guys, he was basically asleep at the wheel. He was in for a few days but suffered quite severe amnesia, and given there was Ellie to watch as well they sent me to go and help out there, and keep an eye on Ellie and him."

"Not so high on their luck then."

"No. That place is too much for him, even when he _is _healthy."

"How many kids has he got there?"

"Eight."

"Fuck my life."

I laughed. "Tell me about it."

He swallowed a bite of his burger. "There was a girl with him, a fledgling?"

"Blonde, pretty, but extremely short?"

"Yeah?"

"Oh that's Anastasie Parisien." I said, "She's in Thirds, she's been staying with him over the Easter holidays, when she turned eighteen she refused to go back to her mother outside of term time, Jehovah's Witness." I said, drawing invisible circles around my ear with my right finger, "She was having it rough at school, they thought it would be better if she stayed in close contact with an adult vamp, Oliver offered to have her in exchange for help looking after all those kids. She's been a bit of a problem kid, I used to have to go and do psychological evaluations on her, but she seems fine now."

"Problem kid?"

I lowered my voice a little. "She tried to commit suicide."

He looked shocked. "Oh."

"She suffers from a form of specific social anxiety disorder." I explained, knowing that I was breaching every patient confidentiality rule in the book, but I was talking to a colleague, a fellow nurse after all. "It resembles ephebiphobia – fear of teenagers, in reaction but she's not afraid of all teenagers, just the ones that bully her, and even then I dunno if it's her own fear, it's like it triggers a psychological reaction. It's been quite bad for her."

"How'd it go unnoticed for so long?"

"Because she functions perfectly well with adults." I said, "She is so plausible; there isn't a streak of teenage-ness in her, around other adults, she acts like a thirty year old, beneath it all, she's actually very mature. And because none of them ever saw her problems it went completely unchecked. But it's like I say, she's been so much better since she's been out of that place. Being in Oliver's house, I think she feels a part of that family when she's really had none of her own, or none that really cared. She's also realised that there are more important things than her own problems, it's taught her how to sideline them."

"And Oliver Pendragon thought it was safe to have someone like that around his brothers and sisters?"

"He watches them like a hawk anyway, I think he thought he could handle everything." I said, "Which, then he couldn't, but it wasn't because of her, thank God."

"Hey listen..." he said, lowering his voice a little, "How long has that girl been staying with him?"

I blew a stray strand of hair out of my face. "Er, about a month, more or less. Why?"

He leant forward a bit again. "I went to check on his sister earlier, he – Oliver was there, and that girl. I was with my colleague, another nurse called Rie, she's a red vamp."

"Don't see too many of those." I said, taking another sip of my coffee and continuing on my fries.

"Yeah, well red vamps are different to normal ones, there are some things they can't do but normal vamps can, but they can do some things that normal vamps can't."

"Such as?"

"They can smell imprints between people."

I lowered my cup from my mouth, but remained silent.

He looked around, as if just to make sure no one was listening. "Rie said, she could smell in imprint between them."

My eyes narrowed of their own accord. "What?"

"She said it was a really, really faint one but she said it was definitely there."

I wiped my eyes as if I'd suddenly become very tired. So I hadn't been wrong after all. "Is she sure?" He nodded to me. I knew it! I knew I wasn't seeing things! But Oliver wouldn't... He knew better! This wasn't like him at all. "Oliver Pendragon, is nothing short of a saint." I said, "He's not the type, he just isn't. I mean she's a beautiful girl, but he wouldn't, ever, get involved with her like that."

"He's been under a lot of pressure lately, and he did lose a lot of his memory, maybe he doesn't see her as quite the pupil he used to. You said it yourself, she's very mature. When I saw them, they acted, not like a couple, as far as _I_ could tell there was no hint of that, but they did act like good friends, not like teacher and pupil. He let her drive him home."

"Really?"

"I saw him give her the carkeys."

I sighed and wiped my forehead. "Ken... I just, can't see it. I can't just take one person's word for it. I don't know Rie, I know you know her, but for all we know she might be an ex of his trying to spite him or she might dislike Anastasie for some godforsaken reason."

"If she does know them then none of them showed it."

"I wish I'd been there!" I said, "I might have been able to tell..."

"Oh yeah, the vamp intuition." He said, "I wish I could do that."

"I'm, not the most intuitive vamp out there, surprisingly." I said. "For me it's a bit like a gut instinct, for some vamps it's like an extra power, almost to the extent of telepathy."

"The thing is..." he said, looking intuitive himself as he thought I might be, "It's not, actually illegal."

"What?"

"Teacher-fledgling relationships." He said, "I did a bit of googling, I presumed it was just like in normal schools where it's actually illegal, but because the Houses of Night are exempt from human legislation, it's not, it's like a university student being in a relationship with a lecturer; technically legal."

"But still frowned upon." I said. I was quite proud of myself, this was the first intelligent conversation I've had with him, "All that just means that he can't be prosecuted in a human court of law."

"What would happen?"

"Well, complete power lies with the High Priestess." I said, making it sound as serious as it was, "She's responsible for disciplinary procedures."

"That sounds bad."

My eyes widened slowly in disbelief that he didn't seem to know. "If it's true..." I said slowly, "Yianna will _crucify _him."

"He's got eight kids to support." Said Kenneth quietly, "He can't afford to be unemployed Lucy."

"This is that medical ethics thing kicking in isn't it?" I said. It was true. Oliver needed a well-paying job to continue to look after those kids. If Oliver lost his job, the likelihood was that they'd have to go into care, and I wasn't willing to risk that based on a report given by one person. No way. "Ken if we could get three independent red vamps each to confirm it then fine, but let's leave it for now. Besides..." I said, "If Yianna sees either of them, their fear of her finding out should tell her instantly."

"And then what?"

I finished my coffee and put the cup down on the table. "Then someone loses an eyeball."

"On their own heads be it." he said simply. "If it's true it's not like they don't know what they're doing."

"Yes that's true." I said, before I remembered exactly what it was we were talking about on our first date. I closed my eyes. "I'm sorry, this is possibly the worst first date conversation ever!"

"What do you wanna talk about then?"

"Is it weird we get our kicks from talking about stuff like that?"

"You're asking me if it's weird that we as nurses have no social lives and enjoy conversation topics such as medical ethics and legislative procedures?" he said, his eyes glinting, "That's crazy talk!" I stuck my tongue out at him, "You finished there?" he glanced down at my empty food cartons.

"Yep." I said, wiping my fingers on a napkin. "You wanna go somewhere?"

"My place?" he asked, "Quick drink?"

I raised an eyebrow cheekily. "I presume you mean alcohol?"

He looked cheeky himself. "_Of course_."

I smirked and gave him a very obvious eye-over to make sure he knew the decision was difficult. Very difficult. He might not just be worth it... "Hmmm..." I said, "Go on then you cheeky sod."


	20. Dead For Nothing

_**Scarborough Fair**_

_**

* * *

**_

_Anastasie_

_

* * *

_

They were looking at me again.

All it took was just one little glace at the group of four or five people waiting for our S&R practical to start. I diverted my eyes away from them and concentrated. I could do this. I had to. What would Oliver think of me if I couldn't? After all he's done for me? I listened to the sound of the tatty soles of my Tescos converse against the lino of the lab floor. The mere thought of feeling that I might let him down made my insides spontaneously disintegrate like running a sheet of ice under a boiling-hot tap. At the same time, I could feel their stares on my back like lasers, trying to do exactly that.

I went and put my bag into one of the open lockers at the side of the lab and headed for the dark blue and guessably inflammable labcoats hung up beside the lockers. Heaving one over my shoulders – it felt heavier than lead at that moment – I listened. I heard a snicker, and soon after more low-pitched chuckled arose from the little clique. I knew that they might not be chuckling about me, come on, kids chuckle about things all the time, but why could I shake this nasty dwelling feeling that they were? They hadn't been laughing when I entered the room, and what else was there to laugh at? Doubt flooded through me and I began to feel sick. And for the first time I remembered that I had eaten this evening, and that that was probably why I was feeling so sick. Ugh, I was stronger that that now. Nothing was worth being that painfully hungry, not ever again. Gathering my practical instructions and pencil case, I went to my bench and waited, taking a little look at the practical notes before I had to start. That was I could probably finish early and Professor Gwenhwyfar would let me get the Hell out of here.

My heart was thumping against my ribcage. I could hear them talking, and this time I was sure it was about me. Normal girls would see red, _I should_ have seen red, at least I felt like I should, but instead I felt like I wanted to curl up in a ball in the corner so that hopefully their remarks would bounce off me. Oh Jesus why did I feel like this? I pretended not to hear and continued reading, the sheets of paper becoming dented in my sweaty hands. By now other people were beginning to filter into the room and so their voices were drowned out by the sound of chatter, bags unzipping and chairs scraping.

"Hey Nasty..." said one of them as they passed behind me to their bench, I didn't even see who said it, and I put my papers down so I could wipe my palms on my labcoat as my stomach began to turn. I won't let them get to me... I won't let them get to me...

One of the girls gave me a bitchy glance. "You've got fat Nasty, what've you been eating all summer?"

My palm hit the desk. "_Fuck off!_" I said, trying to raise my voice loud enough for all of them to hear but it somehow got stuck in my throat. I had intended to shout it out, sound firm, strong, but instead it came out strangled and sounded pathetic. My palm left a sticky imprint on the table. "_All of you can just fuck off!_"

Everyone went quiet, but only for a second or two. They quickly returned to full volume. I closed my eyes as the laughter became louder, and opened them again as everyone fell silent. Professor Gwenhwyfar had entered the room, her thick white hair tied in a tight high ponytail at the back of her head. If you looked at her from behind you might have thought she was an older vampyre, but she was only circa three hundred years old, and appeared no more than thirty. Her ice-blue eyes cut through the class, her similarly white face completely motionless, as if she was made from stone. She looked so angry. I cringed – I would probably get some lip for this from the others later. She looked at me, dead on, before surveying the class again, and resuming.

"Right." She said, so sweetly you might have thought that she'd immediately forgotten all that, but all of us know her better. It might have sounded more threatening if she didn't have such a strong Welsh accent. "As those of you who have read the practical as asked to will know," she said whilst putting on her own black labcoat, the doubt in her voice quite obvious, "today you are all going to be blessing magical pens."

It sounded like a pathetic task, like you'd expect to hear a chorus of groans from around the room, but instead everyone seemed quite excited. You can't write to burn without a magical pen, or pencil, or writing object. Although there's nothing to stop you writing a spell down on paper in ordinary ink and reading aloud, or making one up on the spot. It's for what we call 'writing to burn', for spells which involve burning the incantation script after dunking it in various potions, extracts, incenses. Gwenhwyfar keeps a load away under lock and key for class use, usually we do it for either rituals or quite complicated spells, and due to the usual Health and Safety, we weren't allowed to carry them around the school with us.

Gwenhwyfar continued. "It doesn't need to be anything special, any old biro will do, actually it's better to use a fairly bog-standard biro and not your Waterman, as I'll be taking these from you at the end of the class for safekeeping." She said, and at that did get a chorus of groans. I glanced at the pen I had got out for the class, I hadn't thought we'd be blessing our own, I thought she'd have a pot she'd hand around or something. It was just a simple black biro, pretty bog-standard, but as I looked at the light shine off the surface, I felt a twinge of sentiment towards it. This was the one Oliver gave me, the one I telekinetically lifted from his breast-pocket when I was pretty much out of it on drugs. I knew it was just a pen, but it had alleviated so much boredom, taken my mind off everything, even if it was only a pen. I unzipped my pencil case, decided I would get out another one for the practical, and I could take some notes with this one. Once you've blessed a pen, even just the once, you should never use it for anything else, and how well they worked depended on how well we did it.

"You'll find everything you need on the bench at the back, so get cracking."

It wasn't half as complicated as I thought it was going to be. I needed consecrated water, which was provided for us here but otherwise was a pain in the arse to prepare. I poured some into a beaker, added a pinch of salt, and began to crush some roses with a pestle and mortar. It's not so easy when their fresh, I only managed to get them down to a mushy pulp, but that would do. I scraped them into the beaker with a scalpel. We were only supposed to be stirring it, but that blatantly wasn't going to mix it, so I picked the beaker up off the tripod, covered the end with the palm of my hand, and shook it like a kid might a snowdome. The effect was brilliant, actually like a snowdome, although now the water was a mucky green colour. It would do. I picked up the beaker and went to the window, where the moonlight was shining brightly over the side benches. Lighting some protection incense around it, I put my lighter back down on the table and pulled the biro out of my pocket. It was a sorry little thing, not worth the energy it would take me to snap it in half. Although now it had the chance to be something great. My fingers clenched around the plastic – it was a pen. I sighed – what the Hell was I doing?

I couldn't stop thinking about Ellie in the hospital, about Oliver wrapped up in a coat at her bedside and the others wondering why he still wasn't home. I couldn't stop thinking about what I would be doing right now if I was still there, I couldn't stop thinking about when I gave Louey to Oliver and he didn't come downstairs after me.

I dropped the pen into the beaker, and I almost waited for something to happen. If you read some books they tell you that at this point everything seems to glow, I'm pretty sure it's a load of bollocks, but all the same I kept wondering if I was doing something wrong. I sighed again, I thought after the break I'd at least developed some confidence. Bloody Hell...

I was finished, now all I needed was my incantation, which for sake of ease I hadn't gone and memorised. Wiping the sleep out of my eyes, I turned around and returned to my main bench. Just as I put the palm of my hand to my practical notes, I noticed that my nicer biro wasn't on my folder where I left it. I looked around for a moment, around the edges of the folder and then on the floor. Nothing.

"Has anyone seen my pen?"

Kelly looked up from the bench behind me, chewing gum spinning in her mouth like laundry in a washing machine. "It's in your beaker innit you tit."

I ignored the tit comment. "I had another one, a black one."

"Oh that one, yeah, I fink Tanya's got it."

Suddenly I was furious. "What?" I asked her, leaning my head to the side slightly. And sure enough, one of the other girls was flicking it around in the fingers of her one hand while she chucked badly crushed rose into her water. I walked up to her, put my hands on my hips and cleared my throat. "Do you mind?"

She looked up. "Nah." She said, like it was the simplest thing in the world for her, "Piss off."

I wasn't sure if I saw red or white, but Tanya had flicked a switch in my brain and now I was really, _really_, pissed off! _Vzorvatsiya_, I was so tempted to say, but I clamped my lips together so tightly it was painful. She looked at me as if to ask what the fuck I was looking at.

The glass of her beaker exploded, sending shards of glass into her left arm. She shrieked and leapt away from the bench, shielding her face, and then shrieking again as she noticed some of the shards, whilst most had hit the sleeve of her lab coat and caused no damage, a few had hit and become embedded in the skin of her left hand. My pen clattered to the floor, and she pulled mortified faces as she looked at it, her eyes looking teary.

"_Dvizheniya._" I muttered, and then pen flew from the wooden floorboard to my open palm. It happened so fast I don't think anyone saw it fly to me, except Professor Gwenhwyfar, whose eyes crossed paths with mine as she turned to glance at Tanya. A crowd formed around her, girls jumping over each other to smarm and ask if she was okay. Why the fuck couldn't someone ask if _I_ was okay? Bitches.

"Tanya." Said Gwenhwyfar, disappointment in her voice as she walked over to inspect her hand, "What is that, three times this week now?"

Tanya's mascara was streaming down her face. "I don't know why it keeps happening!" she wailed.

I put the pen in my pocket for safe keeping, and returned to my own bench, collecting my notes on the way. The entire time my stomach was just telling me to get out of here, to walk out, it took me a while to realise that everyone thought it was Tanya's fault, not that it had been me. And fuck it, I was going to stand my ground for once, I wasn't going to run and hide in the loos, I was going to finish this damn practical. Behind my back, I could still hear Tanya wailing about how much it hurt and all the other girls pampering her while Gwenhwyfar took one look at her hand and told her to go to the infirmary. I had hurt her, and still I felt the dark but sweet taste of revenge.

Gwenhwyfar walked past me as she made her way back to the front of the class. She didn't stop, she didn't even look at me, for all any of them knew she might not even have been talking to me, but she was. "Welcome back." She said, her voice unentertained and frank, but not disapproving. My chest filled simultaneously with pride and somehow, with a nasty dash of hate. I'll be damned if I'm going to let them push me around anymore.

* * *

_Lucy_

_

* * *

_

I am no longer at the mother-fucking desk, and now I am sitting inside the nurse's office, under the pretence of actually doing some paperwork, when in reality I am just waiting for the washing machine to finish.

I was so very nearly late for work this evening. Kenneth came around again yesterday and ended up staying, the rest, as they say, is history. I really, really liked him. He's perfect for me, in every single way, just being around him made me feel like a stronger person. Was I falling for him? Possibly. Had I imprinted him? Probably.

I wished he was a vamp, I wished I could spring him a Carlisle Cullen and change him into a vampyre, but it's just not possible. I was so worried of him finding a more suitable human girl and leaving and starting a family. That's why I just wanted to lie there all evening next to him. I couldn't see him that often, as while my shifts were more or less fixed, his would change frequently. Since when did vampyres have to get up to go to work? Bum.

To tell you the truth, I wasn't waiting for the washing machine to finish, I mean I was, but it's not like you can hurry the washing machine along, it takes as long as it takes, I'm not sitting here wondering when it's gonna cough out my clean washing. Nope, I was waiting for Anastasie to get back from classes. Seeing as she's still living in Isolation, it would be fairly easy to intercept her. I had no idea why Yianna wanted her staying up here, she was mentally well enough to go back to the House dorms now, and it was silly, in all honesty, what if we had a patient who had some ridiculously contagious disease and needed the Isolation room? Thank Nyx those kinds of things don't happen very often. But no, I was waiting for her to come back, to welcome her back, obviously, and also to see if I could talk to her about Oliver. I had to try and find out, if what that nurse said was true, even though I doubted it with my entire being. And I didn't even want to believe it, because I wouldn't know what to do if it was true. What do I do? If it's true, do I tell Yianna, as is my duty as a member of staff to observe moral obligations, or I do I stay quiet, and let them get on with it? And what if it gets out that I knew and that I didn't tell Yianna? And what if Oliver is fired and can't provide for those children anymore? And what if Anastasie is making a huge mistake in doing this? This is screwing with my head.

I heard the doors of the infirmary open, followed by footsteps, followed by the key in the isolation room door. Anastasie was back from classes. I had toyed long and hard with the idea of asking her straight out, but then if it was true then why the Hell would she tell me? Should I even be talking to her about it?

Bugger it.

I put my hand on the door just as it was about to close. "Hi Anastasie." I said, pulling it back and stepping around it, closing it behind me. "How are you?"

She dumped her books on the bed and turned to look at me. "Fine." She said, "Are you okay?"

"I'm great, I just wanted to see how you were doing and stuff."

She looked at me like I was a complete idiot. "I'm okay Lucy, you really don't need to worry about me anymore."

"How's the search for your sister going?"

"Still nothing." She said, going back to sorting out her books.

"Hey, listen..." I began, and she looked back at me again, still leaning over her stuff. I stopped, to make sure I said it properly, "I know, we're not exactly close, but if you ever wanna talk about anything, then..."

She smiled, but it was empty. "Thanks."

I took a deep breath, and a formidable plunge. "Anastasie..." I said, "Can I talk to you?"

"Sure." She said, pulling out her desk chair, indicating for me to sit there, and moving her books from her bed onto the desk so she could sit down there. I sat down and fiddled with my fingers, struggling to look her in the eye.

"You know I'm seeing this guy from the hospital right?" I began.

"I didn't, but carry on."

"No, well..." I said, "He was checking on Oliver's sister one day with another nurse, one of the days you were there?"

"Oh the nurses?"

"Yeah. Well the girl, Rie, she's a red vamp."

"I had noticed." She said, "What's it got to do with me?"

"Well..." I twiddled my fingers some more, "I was talking to Kenneth the other day and..." I prevented myself from grimacing and forced myself, my voice getting quieter and quieter, "She said she could... smell an imprint between you and Oliver."

I had expected her to look angry, like I had just insulted her sainted mother, and for a moment I thought she was going to, but she just sat there, staring at me while her jaw dropped.

"Are you serious?" she said, her voice a lot higher than I'm sure she intended it to be. I nodded. She looked like she was completely lost.

"Is it true?" I asked gingerly.

"_Of course it's not fucking true_!" she shouted. Okay, so now she was furious. "Oliver's never so much as touched me!" she said, as I waved my hands up and down in a motion indicating for her to keep her voice down. "I can't _believe _you would even consider the possibility!"

"I'm sorry!" I said quickly, "It wasn't meant like that!"

"Then what was it meant like?" she fumed, "Honestly Lucy what kind of person do you think I am? I..." if possible, she looked angrier, "Were you going to tell Yianna?"

"No! Just listen to me..."

"Look Lucy, you know what? I don't wanna know." She said, turning back to her books, "I think the washing machine's finished."

Hurt, I bit my lip and finally stopped twiddling my fingers. I got up silently and left the room, in an attempt to not worsen the damage I'd already done. Once again, I had managed to make the wrong decision.

* * *

_Anastasie_

_

* * *

_

After Lucy had shut the door and I could no longer hear her footsteps echoing down the corridor, I closed my eyes and covered my forehead with my hand, sinking down onto my bed with a soft plop. What kind of a lie was that to make up about somebody? Even if Lucy hadn't been the one that had made it up, how could she think that it was true?

On the outside I was fuming. But on the inside, I was terrified.

I'd kissed him, and I hadn't exactly discouraged him. What if one of the nurses or doctors had seen us? I didn't know where the Hell this shit about an imprint was coming from, but it had better not go any further, it _couldn't _go any further. I shrivelled inside.

Because if I ever had to prove it to Yianna, she would know everything.

* * *

_Oliver_

_

* * *

_

_It hit me like a bullet train. Not the weight of the situation, but the weight of what she was trying to say. How dare she? __**How dare she? **__I fought to stop myself from screaming at her to reduce her to the shallow puddle she truly was. How dare she... I looked at her, this girl who was supposed to be a paragon of good, who was prepared to forgive a __**murderer **__because her best friend was a naive little girl with a crush. They were both, just, naive little girls with a crush, and she wanted to compare herself to me? This was the girl who had had three men swooning over her (if you count Loren Blake), and two of them had to die before she could make up her mind, and even then she had the audacity to say she had been in love. That's not love. And yes, her soul had shattered for that boy, but it wasn't because she was so madly in love with him that she couldn't take another day. That's not the only thing your soul can shatter for. The proof was in front of me. She couldn't see that I could never retrieve the shards of my soul like she had. I had simply remained conscious. He was an on and off fling but above all he was an old friend to her, not a love. I knew, because she tried to describe it. Love isn't describable in words, barely even in actions. She wanted to compare her pain, which had lasted all of five minutes because, surprise surprise, number three had stepped up to that mark, to mine?_

_I knew about the rumours that circulated amongst the student body. Apart from Anastasia, the closest friendship I'd maintained was with Lenobia, and I knew some of them thought it was more. Lenobia was beautiful, lovely and fully deserved someone to love her, but that person would never be me, and the thought had crossed everyone else's minds before it had even crossed my own, because I didn't love her. _

_I truly believed that if Anastasia had become what Neferet had, I would have stood by her regardless. And I know she would do the same for me. And here stood Zoey Redbird, at seventeen years old, telling me she knew better. _

"_You say you know what it's like to lose a love?" I asked her, glaring her down, "Less than a decade?" she looked upset, and I relished it. For the first time in my life, I felt truly cruel, truly evil, I wanted to make her feel the pain I was feeling, I wanted to hurt her for her insolence. "Anastasia was my mate for more than a _century_!"_

_She was murdered trying to help you._

_And you'd have her die for nothing._

There was a ringing in my ears. It started while I could still see the girl in front of me, her long dark hair hanging around her face, her eyes pleading for me to come back from whichever dark place I was. It got louder and louder, like when you've fainted and you're starting to come around. I hadn't left the hospital, hadn't left Ellie's bedside, so I must have dozed off. The ringing in my ears became louder still, and now it sounded more like a siren. I felt a light grip on both of my arms, and recognised it as a person's. I leapt out of my skin, firstly, because I realised that someone was trying to wake me up, and secondly, because I realised that the ringing wasn't a siren.

It was the sound of a flat-lining ECG.


	21. Moral Obligations

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

**Me: Hello, sorry about the wait, lots going on for uni, I've just been on a placement which required me to start at 5am and I didn't finish until 6pm, for 3 weeks, no weekends off, so I'm knackered, but I'm finally a little more inspired. Oh, and I've run out of Scarborough Fair verses to stick at the beginning of every other chapter...**

**I just heard they're bringing out a book about Dragon and Anastasia in July, called "Dragon's Oath". Been reading some people's thoughts on it, they're generally negative. I dunno, I'd be quite interested to read it, see what the real authors come up with for them. I'm trying not to write too much of this, as I want it to be as close to the books as possible, so I may change some elements of this story, like flashbacks, to fit in, but I will tell you where I've changed stuff and I won't change much.**

**I was listening to Thomas Newman's "Any Other Name" when I wrote this. Beautiful piece of music. Put it on as you read this – really puts the story across well.**

**Anyway, here's the next chapter, enjoy!**

* * *

_Are you going to Scarborough Fair?_

_Parsley sage, rosemary and thyme._

_Remember me to one who lives there,_

_He once was a true love of mine._

* * *

_Oliver _

* * *

I couldn't remember a time in my life when I'd been more terrified, or even anywhere close. I had woken in a cold sweat from one nightmare into another. It was like being dunked into cold water and being held down. I'm sure I was yelling but I couldn't hear the sound coming out of my own mouth, I was desperately trying to scream her name, to get to her, suddenly very much awake and all too conscious of the fact that someone was trying to restrain me.

A nurse was holding my upper arms with a firm grip. "Mr. Pendragon, you need to come outside." She said, blocking my view of my sister with her body. I violently shook myself from her grasp and tried to push her out of my way, I was a male vampyre, I could easily have thrown her into the opposite wall. I didn't care if I hurt her, I had to be with Ellie.

The nurse stepped straight into my path again, I hadn't pushed her far enough. "The medical team needs room to work."

I barely heard her words as I watched them roll up a defibrillator on a trolley and attach electrodes to her – my little sister...

"Mr. Pendragon."

The touch on my arm was soft, but serious, and suddenly I could hear the nurse again. I understood, they needed space and didn't need the hassle of me panicking. I nodded and turned on my heel, closing the door quietly behind me and watched through the thick glass. The nurse gave my shoulder a sympathetic squeeze and suggested that I go and get a cup of coffee.

"I don't want a fucking coffee!" I snapped, "I just want to stay as close to her as I can, is that _too much to ask_?"

She said nothing, and silently went back into the room. I had no idea how I could even look at this. I forced myself to breathe, it was okay, defibrillators saved millions of people... So why was I fearing the worst? I couldn't help it. How did she get so ill, just from a bump on the head? My own flesh and blood! I wanted to scream! How could I have let this happen to her? That little girl was everything to me! I heard the first shock, a tear ran down my cheek and in that moment I closed my eyes and begged Nyx to take me instead of her.

I couldn't feel Nyx now. At all. Not even one little bit. Not through the scream of the ECG and the blurring bodies with stethoscopes and latex gloves. What had my little sister done to deserve this? Had I done something to deserve this? Was this some awkward way of punishing me for something? I could hear my father's voice in my head, I could remember him holding her in his arms and smiling more brightly than he would have done in the entire day. I could remember my mother sitting by the Aga rocking her, and I remembered why they had had so many children.

They wanted a daughter. And after six boys, finally they had Fran and Ellie. I dropped off the edge of a pit to oblivion in my mind – my father would never have let this happen. It was _meningitis_, for _fuck's sakes_! And it hadn't started out as a serious case of! My father would have known like that that something wasn't right before, he would never have let it get to this stage. He would have known how to save her, how to protect her from it in the first place. He could have done everything that I hadn't. It wasn't that I couldn't, it was that I hadn't, I was sure. I had made a diabolical choice in my life and my family was suffering as a result.

I stared through the glass and my tears. Nothing, still nothing, the shocks were lifting her off the bed and the violent pumping of the doctor trying to restart her heart looked like it might break her ribs. I could hear the ring of the ECG screaming – they were trying, trying so hard for her, I was trying so hard for her and it wasn't enough.

I don't know how long I stood there, it felt like seconds. I was completely numb to everything except what was happening inside that room. I watched them send volts through her tiny body, pump oxygen into her lungs, press on her heart, stick needles into her skin, shout and completely obscure her from my view.

The doctor holding the defibrillator let his fists, still clamped around the machine, drop to his waist, his face a picture of pure misery. A childish part of me asked why was he stopping?

And it was at that moment that my entire world slowed down.

I could hear him speak, even over the screaming ECG, the loud voices inside, and the bustle of the corridor outside, I heard him.

"_Are we all agreed we've done everything we can?"_

My jaw dropped slowly. "No..." I whimpered, my voice shaking. Panic gripped me and I threw the door to the room open. "No!" I shouted, "You can't stop! Please! Don't stop you need to help her please..."

"Mr. Pendragon..." the doctor said, tears appearing at the edges of his own eyes, "Ellie's heart stopped beating almost nine minutes ago."

I knew it. She was dead. My precious baby sister was dead. I looked at her lifeless body lying there covered in electrodes and burst into tears.

The doctor wiped his eyes on the back of his arm. "Time of death: eight forty-one pm."

A nurse switched off the flat-lining ECG, and the room fell silent. I couldn't control myself anymore, I couldn't stop shaking, I couldn't stop crying, I couldn't stop regretting all the days when I hadn't got around to telling her a bedtime story. My hands covered my mouth as more tears streamed and I fell to my knees.

Suddenly the doctor was in front of me. "I'm so sorry..." he said, removing one of his medical gloves so he could wipe a tear from his own cheek, "Her adrenal glands began to haemorrhage, it caused her to go into acute renal failure."

I barely heard him. All I heard was the shattered bits of my soul clatter to the floor around me, as hers floated out of the window.

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

I watched silently as Hera pounced on a mouse from the windowsill.

I didn't even see the mouse until she had already caught it, hiding in the darkness of the shade cast by the leg of my bureau. All I saw was her ears prick and her eyes hone in on that something on the floor, and pounce. I was impressed – my eyesight was never that good. My cat was my eyes and ears around this place, and I'm sure that if she could speak, she would tell me all the things that I didn't know about it. Still I watched silently as she clenched the flailing mouse in her jaws and crushed its neck, as it went limp, as she dragged it back over to her basket in the corner and proceeded to eat it.

Hera was a Chartreux, a domestic French breed of cat, large, lithe, with an inky blue-black coat and copper coloured eyes. Chartreux are all named according to the year in which they were born. Their names always began with the letter of the alphabet of that year, which ran through the alphabet, emitting letters K, Q, W, X, Y and Z. They weren't generally known for their hunting prowess, however, Hera was definitely the mouse-catcher my office needed. I allowed her to hunt, one; it was necessary and two; it is after all her natural behaviour.

The answer as to why we had mice all the way down here alluded me. It was only my office that seemed to be the problem and I'd had so many other things to do that I'd pushed it to the back-boiler for now, and Hera was doing a grand job.

And all the while, as I sat there silently, I never felt a single pang of pity for the mouse. It had never asked to be born a mouse. It was stuck in all its behaviours and mannerisms that made it a pest, it couldn't help what it was. And still, I didn't mind Hera killing it. I remembered way back, back to before I was even Marked, sitting in an RE lesson listening to how animals didn't have souls, only humans did. Did that count vampyres, I wondered? I did believe that animals had souls, of course I did, but never in my life had I been able to draw a psionosphere for an animal. People like Demeter and Ellen always surprised me in their instant ability to read an animal's fears. I had come to a conclusion in my head – I had been given the gift to smell fear, but had at the same time lost the ability to see it.

For all my affinity, I couldn't feel the fears of a dying mouse.

My phone rang, and I tore my eyes away from that spot where Hera had pounced to swivel in my chair and answer it.

"Hello." I said, tucking my left arm around my body and balancing my right elbow on it to minimalise the effort of holding the receiver to my ear. It had to be said, it certainly wasn't a voice I was expecting to hear.

"Yianna." Came an extremely matter-of-fact tone from the receiver into my ear, "It's Spiridion."

My brow creased. "Spiridion?" I answered, my voice ran deadly cold, "What do you want?"

"As much as I enjoy our banterous conversations Yianna, I'm afraid I have some very bad news to depart." I raised my eyebrows slightly and remained silent as if to beckon his next words. His voice was gruff and grated against the inside of my skull as it crackled down the phone line. "I'm afraid Oliver's sister died this morning."

My grip on the phone tightened. Jesus Christ. "And why am I hearing this from you?" I asked him.

"I've been looking after the children of late." He replied sternly, "And Oliver is in no fit state to tell you himself."

That poor little girl. How old was she, five? Her life barely begun and she was dead, before she could even deserve it. For the life of me I could never fathom why bad things happen to the good and innocent, to children, and yet there were criminals that thought their chosen vocation was funny and never got caught, never got ill. I remembered Ian Huntley, jailed for life for murdering two little girls, he was attacked in prison by a fellow inmate with a sharpened toothbrush, not only was he saved by doctors, the government then proceeded to give him £20,000 compensation. And what about those girls' right to a life? Life made me sick sometimes.

"Haemorrhage of the adrenal glands." He said, "The doctors call it Waterhouse-Friderichsen Syndrome secondary to the meningitis. Kid never stood a chance."

"Right." I said, after pausing to allow the information to soak in and cradling my forehead, "Tell Oliver not to worry about work or money. And if there's anything I can do then let me know."

"I'll tell him."

"Does he want it announced to the school or not?"

"Not yet. Although I imagine it will get out anyway at some point and the school will have to be told officially."

"I'll leave it for now then." I said gravely, "Oh, and let me know if there's a funeral, I'd like to attend."

He seemed accepting. "Good night Yianna." He said.

"Good night." I said, as the line went dead.

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

At last, I think I've found some peace and quiet. The library.

If you think we're all studious little beavers then you're sorely mistaken, and at gone ten in the morning, it was definitely the last place you'd find even the most ill-prepared pre-exam crammer. It was a tiny library, there weren't exactly many books published on vampyres, and even then just a select few were available here. It alluded me, how everyone here could learn so much more about themselves if they'd only look. It was silent here, nothing moved, and I sat at the desk, opposite the door, like I was expecting someone to open it and walk in.

My attempts at my Sociology essay were half-hearted, and I could do with being in bed had it not been for my mind needing the peace, and privacy, to think. When you ask yourself questions you don't usually expect yourself to answer them, and surprisingly, your rational side never tells you the answers you want to hear. I sighed, and turned the page of my textbook. I thought of Oliver again, him kissing me, and I wondered what we were thinking. Or if we were thinking the same thing. I shook my head to myself, I would do better to forget it ever happened. How could I when someone was accusing us though? In here, over the past few days, I've looked in every book I can get my hands on. Not one describes a kiss as being the cause of an Imprint. I've often wondered what Imprints felt like. What it was like to share a bond like that with someone. Not all Imprints were the same if course, but they all arise for a reason, a chemistry, be it sexual or otherwise. I'd never been kissed before. No one had ever held me like that before. It had felt like a part of life that I wasn't allowed to have, that I couldn't reach because of my own limitations. Nowadays, sex is expected, and if guys know that you're a complete beginner, they'll run a mile. I supposed that was what drunken escapades were for. But I can't do it. Not with any random tosser. I didn't expect a moonlight serenade, or an expensive dinner, or a bed of rose petals I just wanted him not to care a damn that I was gonna make it up as I go along. It would help if I could even look guys in the face.

So when that happened with Oliver, it was like he'd given me a feeling I never thought I'd have, no matter how stupid and silly it was. That feeling of being genuinely wanted. And now, I partially wished it had never happened, so I wouldn't have to resign myself to the fact it would never happen again. I wasn't sure whether I was grateful or if I hated him for it.

"Anastasie?"

It was a little voice. I looked up from my work and blinked very suddenly with disbelief. "Ellie?" I said, staring as Eleanor Pendragon stood before me, the little girl wearing the same pyjamas she had in the hospital, and her long blonde hair in a ponytail over her shoulder, "What are you doing here?"

"I found you." She said, her face alight with a big grin as she tipped onto her toes and gave a little jump, "I've been looking for ages!"

I chucked pens and pencils into my pencil case and shoved books into my bag away so I could take her back to Oliver. He was insane to be bringing her here, and what was he even doing here at this time anyway? I never bothered to think. "Did Oliver bring you here? What are you doing out of bed?"

"Oliver's sad." She said, beginning to look upset, "And I can't make it better."

I got up from my seat, the chair legs scraping the wooden floorboards, and gently slung my bag over my shoulder."What's the matter?"

"Nothing I do will help him."

I pointed towards the door. "Is he in his office?"

She shook her head, swinging her ponytail from her shoulder and back and forth. "He's at home now."

My voice went faint. "So, why are you here?"

A voice came from my left, and at the same time a trace of the smell of smoke wafted into my nose. "I told her where she could find you."

Sitting on the table just across from me was a little blonde girl, older than Ellie, about eleven, her hair braided in pigtails hand hanging down over her shoulders. I had never seen her before, but I knew instantly who she was.

"No..." I said, "No... You!" I pointed at the pigtailed girl, "You're playing tricks on me!" She remained completely silent, completely still, "No..." I turned, "Ellie?" I said, "How?"

She grinned again and rocked back and forth on her tiptoes, and said nothing.

I practically threw myself against Yianna's door. "Yianna!" I yelled, hammering against the door, "Yianna!"

The door opened and Yianna appeared, sickeningly tidy as always. "Anastasie please calm down."

"Yianna I need to get to Oliver's house!"

Her brow lowered. "He didn't tell me you were on first name terms."

I paused to mentally slap myself around the face. "It's, really really important I, I need to go, now!"

"And what has happened outside that so requires your immediate attention?"

I looked her dead in the eye whilst trying to calm myself down. "His sister's died."

She turned her head slightly to the side. "How did you know?"

"You knew?"

"I knew." She said. My immediate response was to ask her how, but I bit my tongue. "The question is how do you know?"

"I'll tell you later I just really need to see him."

Yianna looked down at me, from her five foot eleven to my five foot two. "Anastasie, it's broad daylight."

"I need to go."

"I'm sorry."

"Yianna!"

"Anastasie, I know you care about that little girl, but Professor Pendragon needs his space right now. Friends and family will be all he can deal with."

But he has no family and I am his friend! "Yianna please!"

"I'm sorry Anastasie, no is no."

I blinked.

"You can go and pay your respects when the grief isn't so fresh." She said, "I promise."

I'm fairly sure I must have looked like one mean bitch right then. I could even bring myself to say anything to her I was so angry. I turned on my heel and went, breaking into a run as I went. Yianna didn't understand, and I couldn't tell her.

Slamming my bedroom door, I knew there had to be another way. Our windows were bolted so that we could only open them a fraction, something to do with not falling out and plummeting to our deaths. And also something to do with not escaping during the daylight hours and dying. There was also a shutter system, which came down every morning and didn't come up again until sunset. Fortunately they hadn't come down yet, and I could still see across the silent Scarborough Bay.

"Otkryvat."

I could cast spells using Latin, but for some reason, Russian seemed to work better. I had no idea why, but I wasn't going to be one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak. The bolts clicked off at my command and I pushed the window open as far as it would go. Climbing onto the windowsill, I swung my legs over the edge and looked down – the tide was in, and if I fell, I would hit shallow water and whatever lay beneath it. Christ... I didn't know if I could do this – I hadn't exactly tried again since jumping off the keep. It was a long way down... Come on Anastasie... Closing my eyes tightly, I took a deep breath.

"Dvizheniya."


	22. Pitch Black

_**Scarborough Fair**_

**Me: Enjoy!**

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

I didn't hear the door open. I didn't even wonder why anyone that might have been outside would be coming inside, or why any random stranger wouldn't knock.

But I did recognise the voice. It stirred me deep down in places that surprised me, it was painful to my ears. I clutched Louey tightly in my hands – the tiny, ragged, soft toy dog with frayed edges and the odd Ribena stain hadn't left my arms since I brought him back from the hospital, along with all of Ellie's other things. Her pyjamas, her dressing gown and slippers for when she wanted to get up and wander around... I sniffed and all the pain flooded in again as if for the millionth time, as fresh as it ever was. And for all the tears and sobs I held in, it didn't stop more coming. I clenched my jaw and winced at my own thoughts grinding on the inside of my skull, as I heard Spiridion greeting her. Good God...

Then the door opened, and she was standing in front of me. Wind-rustled, and looking exhausted, she forced her composure as if she had been late for a lesson and was hoping that if she stood straight I might not tell her off. Her inanely blue eyes were dull, sapped of all energy, and painfully red, even her energy, her aura, was dim. She had used her powers to come here, I knew, and in full daylight. I could see that pinkness under her skin that fledglings get when they've been out in sunlight, that asthma-like reaction in her heavy breathing. And I couldn't make the decision as to whether I should be proud, relieved, or angry. She was still wearing her school uniform, the black blouse with the silver Tertiary Form emblem and the grey pleated skirt. I hated seeing her wear it, a young woman in a child's clothing. Wordlessly, I got up from my seat on the sofa arm, and pulled the very thick curtains shut on the Sun outside on all three windows in the room, until it was all but pitch black. Inwardly I drew a sigh of relief – the dark was our natural habitat as vampyres, light irked us, and dark soothed what light did to us. Another reason I hated being a vampyre. I hate what I am. I had always loved the Sun, and the warmth that came with it, there is no life without it, and I was shutting the rest of life out with it.

I could still see Anastasie, my night vision far superior to a human's, superior probably even to hers. She didn't relax, but rather became more distressed in the dark like it allowed to her to concentrate on something other than her own suffocation.

"_Oliver_..." she said. Her throat was tight and she stifled a few coughs. "_How – why did this happen?_"

Just when I thought I had run out of tears, a fresh one ran down my cheek. I said nothing. I couldn't. She was trying to stare at me, but couldn't quite in the dark.

"_Just tell me what happened_." She said, "_Please..."_

"Her adrenal glands haemorrhaged." I blurted, "Everything else failed and she never even woke up." I blinked yet another acidic tear, "And it was all my fault..."

"No it wasn't." She said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Self-disgust swept through me, followed by self-loathing. I couldn't bear the thought of anyone offering comfort, or sympathy. I hadn't even said goodbye... I deserved to shrivel up in a hole alone and die. I deserved to go to Hell for what I had permitted to happen, and I will not let anyone put it any other way. I couldn't bear her pity, and I couldn't stop my tears again. And she knew all that, better than anyone, how _dare_ she pretend like she doesn't know? The pain of everything, of Ellie, and how I had lost Ellie, constricted my chest and I couldn't breathe. Anastasie took slow steps towards me, sill not fully able to see in the dark and fumbling to touch bits of furniture to stop her from walking into things. I didn't move, not until her hand touched the sofa arm, and then mine. I involuntarily flinched so hard my feet almost left the floor, and I pushed her away from me, putting as much distance between her and me as I could. I should have done this a long time ago.

"Oliver?"

"Anastasie I'm sorry." I said sharply, "I can't deal with any more people today."

"But it's just me." She said.

"I can't." I snapped, "I, I just need some time alone is that _too much_ for me to ask?"

"The last thing you need is to be alone." She said, "This is not something you can go through alone."

"Don't you think everyone is saying the same thing?" I asked her, anger in my voice, "I know! And the last thing I need is more people swanning around with their pity! Their grief, their sadness for my family. I'm sorry. It's too much. And I can't take it!"

"Oliver..."

"Look, just please leave." I told her, avoiding her distraught eyes as best I could, "Just go back to school. I can't deal with this now."

She looked so hurt. I braved it out and thought 'good'. I needed people to listen to me when I said I needed space. I had well and truly had enough, even of Anastasie. I was naive, to believe for one moment that she might have understood me. I shook my head to myself again. She was in so many ways a woman, and yet in so many ways a child. She turned, and left without saying a word, and I heard the door close behind her. Only after she had gone, did I wish she had put up more of a fight.

* * *

_Spiridion_

* * *

Shit.

I heard what Oliver said, God all of Scarborough probably heard what he said. He can have quite a mouth on him sometimes. I knew he was going through a lot of pain, but that was no excuse for being rude. Especially not to her.

How the Hell do you deal with seven destroyed kids on your own? I mean these sad little scenes you see on all the soaps usually involve either one or two children; heart-breaking, but conveniently easy to deal with. But seven? Actually, eight, Oliver included. Everyone thought of Oliver as their parent, it never occurred to any of the dumb fucks that he was just their older brother forced into early parenthood by moral obligations. Everyone thought Oliver was a wise head on young shoulders who could deal with anything, then again everyone hadn't known him aged sixteen, swanning around my Fencing Hall with a cocky smile like he owned the place. He loved his siblings, but the stress had crushed his spirit to dust, and now this.

I don't know anyone who wouldn't have done as Oliver had, given up their life to ensure those kids were brought up straight. I don't waste my time making acquaintances with those that wouldn't. What was Oliver supposed to do now? God what was I supposed to do now? It affected them all differently, depending on age, some of them didn't understand the concept of death yet, and it was a blessing in disguise. Oliver was hysterical. I had tenderly touched upon the subject of funeral arrangements and he burst into tears. Then I had considered starting phoning around, telling his relatives. Yianna was just the last I had got to and after that I had needed somewhere to rest, and after that somewhere to eavesdrop.

Anastasie said nothing as she left, I knew better than bothering to try and stop her. That boy really was stupid. Ah, wait a minute – Oliver came out of the living room and marched out of the front door, and I wondered if he was going after her. Sighing, I shut the address book and got up from my perch next to the phone bureau in the hallway, noting the fact that I was far too old to sit on my arse for such a long time. Opening the door and bracing myself against the mid-morning breeze I immediately squinted and shielded my face – damn sunlight. It was bright today and it never failed to put me in a bad mood, if it was possible in fact to fall into a pit of worse tempers than the one I was already wallowing in this morning. Oliver and Anastasie were nowhere to be seen and I came to the conclusion that he had not gone after her, or if he had, she wasn't having any of it.

I found Oliver in the yard, and I heard him before I saw him. The familiar sound of the air being cut by a blade that was usually such music to my ears suddenly worried me. I watched him. It would have been beautiful, beautiful, but it lacked Oliver's usual grace and sheer precision, in fact it had gone past bordering and into embracing violent. For a warrior with no time to train, he looked none the worse. A Cambridge degree wasted it may have been, but a talent wasted it most certainly was not. An 18th century European duelling rapier, with a German swept hilt sliced through the atmosphere more easily than a dinner knife through soft butter. That was a bloody nice piece of kit.

"What's it worth eh?" I asked loudly as I approached the flailing sword, "Fifteen, eighteen grand?"

Oliver stopped for a moment, his eyes red and puffy. I knew, even though he wouldn't face me. "You should know." He said stiffly.

It was never mine of course. Belonged to a friend of mine, many years ago. I was laden with it when he died, and since such a fine weapon was no longer allowed in sport, it had sat in a locked cabinet for well over a century. I had given it to Oliver roughly ten years ago. He embodied the spirit of its original owner, one might say. Ha.

"You're a very silly boy." I told him, "That was extremely rude of you."

"Rudeness?" he blurted, "Why is it rude to want to be alone?"

"Haven't you ever been told that if you push people away they won't come back when you really do need them." I told him brusquely as I strode towards him, a smirk on my lips and an arrogance in my eye. "She's only ever done good by you that girl, and you pushed her away right at your breaking point didn't you?"

"And why should I not Spiridion?" he shouted, "If there's anything I should be doing it's pushing her away."

I bit my lip. I can't tell him. I remembered that this time it was him that was older, and the gap was bigger. And he was a tad too sensible for it. How very infuriating. "Why would you push away someone that gave you a moment's relief from this agony?" I asked him, "Can't you appreciate the good things in your life for once? Instead of forcing yourself to live without them?"

Oliver looked down at the hilt for a moment like it was burning his hand, scowling and mouth tight, he shook it a few times like he was trying to throw it down, but he was welded to it.

"You ever been tied to something you hate?" he asked me.

I blew some strands of my fringe out of my face in a demeaning gesture. "I worked at that blasted school for nearly two hundred years didn't I?"

He held up the blade for a moment. "This," he said, "This killed someone."

"Most eighteenth century weapons have."

I didn't like to make light of serious subjects, and yet I didn't like to make sombre of facts that were not necessarily pleasant but nevertheless true and had to be dealt with. Yes, it had killed someone. It was instrument to a suicide. That was why I had it – nobody else would. I didn't remember ever telling Oliver that, I must have told him about it at some point.

"And I can't put it down." He said, "It's the only thing that's connecting me to the world and it makes me sick."

"That's affinities for you." I told him.

"How can something so deadly be so comforting?"

"What are we talking about here?"

"I can't face any more people, not after what I've let happen."

"Oh stop it!" I shouted back, "You didn't let Ellie die the doctors did! You know that and yet you still whine! It's not Anastasie's fault that you're a silly prat!"

"How _dare_ you?"

He lunged at me, that sharp blade missing my chest by inches. Unarmed I couldn't defend myself, I'm not sure if I could even defend myself against him if I was armed, he was beating me by the time he was seventeen.

"Oliver stop!" He kept forcing me backwards, until he seemed to contain his rage and simply held the rapier to my chin.

"I could kill you." He said, his face delirious, his eyes filled with something I couldn't quite place, "I could refuse to put up with you any longer!"

"No you couldn't." I replied, "Oliver Pendragon." I remained calm and looked him in the eye, "You have never had the heart to kill and you never will."

Oliver's eyes closed, and the sword fell from his hand, dropping to the ground with a clang. Mentally I chided him. That was no way to treat that kind of metalwork. He turned away from me on his heel and strode back to the house, leaving it at my feet.

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

I couldn't believe that girl had the audacity to defy me. Pulling up into Oliver's driveway, I supposed I shouldn't have been so naive. Of course she was going to try. The heater of my car hadn't even had a chance to get warm in the short drive here, and it was still blowing cold air at me now. I had been tempted to turn it off and put the seat warmers on, but had decided that wouldn't be worth it either, with all of a ten minute journey. I knew it was cooler outside, and I didn't want to get out of the car, even if the kitchen was warmer. I scoffed to myself and doubted I'd even be let inside the kitchen, if Spiridion was around. I was stupid to wonder why I was even here. What had happened to the days when fledglings did as you asked? Maybe she had some kind of crush on him or something like that, not unlikely. Then again I shouldn't have doubted her ability to get out in the first place. I undid my seatbelt and turned the engine off, and was just about to get out into the fresh morning sea air, when I stopped.

Oliver was marching towards the front door, his face distraught, eyes forlorn. I didn't think he even saw me parked here, watching him from behind the dark windscreen. All I could see in him was a shell of emptiness. My psionospheres were empty, no matter how hard I tried, in those few seconds I couldn't extract one single fear from him. Not one. It was like life had completely drained him of anything he might have been before, any spirit, any strength. My eyes followed his path to the house, almost breaking into a jog because he couldn't stand the cold outside. I had seen this before.

It's what happens when a person has no more fears, because their worst fears have become reality.

I waited until he went inside before I got out of the car. The wind bit my face, and I growled as I slammed the door shut behind me. Fantastic.

"What are you doing here?"

Oh bloody Hell. Spiridion was marching towards me from the same direction Oliver had come from, his face stern, and a sword worthy of King Arthur clenched in his hand.

"I'm looking for Anastasie Parisien." I said, "I told her she couldn't come and give her condolences today and five minutes later she was gone."

"Oh." He said, looking mildly entertained, "You've just missed her."

"It's not funny Spiridion."

"Ah my dear it is extremely funny. Why did you even bother coming if you knew she'd be here?"

"It's not about me knowing where she is." I said, fed up to the back teeth of his arrogance, "It's about enforcing discipline. She can't just go running off whenever she wants, it's not safe for a start! What if someone had seen her jump from her window? They'd think we were a bunch of hooligans for letting the kids do that!"

"Why is it always about appearances to you?" he said dismissively, "Why worry? They always come back eventually. And Anastasie Parisien is the least of your worries."

"So what are you saying, that I should just have let her come? At no notice to come and barge in on a mourning family?"

I saw him think about his next sentence and in my head I tallied off another point to me. Stupid prick.

"Yianna?"

Oliver was at the door. Both Spiridion's head and mine turned towards him, his crackling voice and his tear-stained face. It was completely simultaneous, one single moment in the time we'd known each other, where our concerns had been absolutely identical. I gave Spiridion some credit; he cared for Oliver, possibly like his own son, he was distant enough, not actually family and so able to keep his head above board, but he was close enough to be trusted with anything. I imaged it would be him doing a lot of the organising from now on. Having said, Spiridion's somewhat fatherly tendencies towards students was what had got him into trouble in the first place.

"What's the matter?" Oliver asked me. I shrivelled inside – I could barely look him in the face.

"I was looking for Anastasie." I replied, "She ran away, she'd heard the news and I thought she might be here."

"I've just sent her back to school." He said wearily, "I can't see her now." He blinked, and looked a Spiridion, "How did she know?" he asked the older vampyre, "Did you tell her?"

Spiridion shook his head. "I thought you might have done."

Both of them looked at me. "She already knew when she came to me."

Spiridion's eyes diverted away for a moment. "Odd." He said.

"Well." Said Oliver, patting the door with his hand, "You know where to find her so..."

He began to retreat back inside. "Oliver." I called, just before the door closed. He reappeared, "My condolences." I said solemnly. What else could I say?

"Thank you." He said, before closing the door and disappearing for what I'm sure would feel like for good.

Spiridion's eyes followed him as did mine. "He'll be alright." He said to me, "Give him time."

I only hoped time was enough.


	23. Curiosity

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

**Me: Hi all, sorry it's been so long, have been in the middle of exams. Enjoy! **

* * *

_Tell her to make me a cambric shirt, _

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, _

_Without no seam nor fine needlework, _

_And then she'll be a true love of mine._

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

Standing in front of the mirror in my room, which Yianna had finally allowed me to move back into after God knows how long, I straightened out the white collar of my shirt and pulled the hem down to smooth out the creases that had managed to emerge after only five minutes of wearing it. Typical. I looked at myself in the mirror again, my face. I must have looked a good ten years older than I was. I was wearing make-up, a rare occasion for me, and my hair was back in a bun save for a few loose strands around my face. I looked like some kind of successful corporate boss, or the very least a candidate from The Apprentice. I had just about managed to turn myself out properly with what I had. Slowly pulling my black coat over my shoulders, and remembered why I was dressed like this.

Today was Ellie's funeral.

Yianna had promised I could go, and even if she hadn't I'd have done the window stunt again anyway. Picking up my bag, which I had just about stuffed full of tissues, knowing I was going to cry and completely defeating the point of the make-up, I locked the door to my room and made my way to Yianna's office. I had hoped I wouldn't get the odd looks as I walked down the house corridor, yet there were always going to be one or two. The walk was far too long – I had always thought that if anyone was claustrophobic, they would never be able to stand it down here. It was still, after all, a converted dungeon. The ceilings were low, I think it was because in the twelfth century the nation's average height was much lower. I was short, but even for me it was all small and cramped. The walls were old grey stone, the floors grey slate covered with red carpet, and everything was lit by candles. It was said that there were secret passages, ones even smaller than the main ones, old escape routes connecting the oldest parts of the dungeon, one rumour even described one that ran up to the chamber that was now Yianna's office. Yianna fiercely denied it, and many many fledglings had tried to find such passageways and failed. Maybe they didn't exist, but it was the little stories like that that kept this place alive.

The lobby area was hugely transformed from the older dormitories; it was lit by electricity, for a start. The floors were wooden, the walls panelled. I looked at my watch – ten thirty am. I was on time, and Yianna was not. Sitting down on the bench outside her office door, I tuned into the deep silence that filled the place. These walls were thick, what happened inside them stayed there. My ear almost twitched – I did hear something. It sounded like a herd of elephants approaching. I heard voices, and then the larger doors – the main entrance from the surface opened, letting through, I'd say, about fifteen fledglings, Creps, if I had to judge, and all speaking with American accents, along with luggage and bright eyes. They were followed by a vamp, petite, but not so as me, and a stern face. I had never seen anyone with hair so blonde. It was so blonde it was almost silver; I had trouble believing it was natural. She was wearing a charcoal grey roll-neck top, and black suit trousers, and I could see her Mark – horses.

The noise seemed to alert Yianna, because then she emerged from her office and greeted the blonde vampyre heartily. I couldn't hear what she was saying over the gossiping fledglings. Suddenly the blonde vampyre looked particularly angry.

"Quiet!" She shouted, her voice far louder than all of theirs put together. Silence. Her expression was lethal, and not one of them dared utter a sound after that. She turned back to Yianna. "Sorry about that." She said pleasantly.

Yianna looked at her watch. "I'm really sorry I'm going to have to leave you here I have a funeral to attend." Just in that moment, as she said the word funeral, Yianna's eyes rested on me, just for a split second. "I'll have the porters take you to your rooms."

And in that split second, the blonde vamp's eyes followed hers and found me. I looked away, not wanting them to think I was eavesdropping. I looked out of the corner of my eye, and I noticed she was staring at me. Full on staring at me. Her grey eyes boring straight into mine, like she had just beheld some kind of miracle. She was so distracted she didn't notice Yianna extend her hand towards her. She shook herself out of it at Yianna's voice asking her if she was alright. She said she was, shook her hand, and Yianna began walking towards me. I looked away again, and stood up, grabbing my bag and walking alongside her.

"Sorry I'm late." Said Yianna, her keys jingling in her hand, "This morning's been a bit hectic."

"I can see." I said. I took a sneaky glance behind me shoulder, and sure enough, she was still staring.

Once I was in Yianna's car, I fastened the seatbelt and waited for her to close the door. "Who was that?" I asked her, stuffing my bag down by my feet.

"The Tulsa lot arriving for the Symposium." She said, turning the key in the ignition.

"Who's the blonde vampyre?" I prodded.

"Her name's Lenobia." Yianna answered, "She's actually their ES professor, the High Priestess can't make the first few days so she's their chaperone for now. Did you know her?" she asked, "She's quite well-known, you might have heard of her."

"I don't think I have."

"They say that if it's got anything to do with a horse, she can do it."

"I don't doubt it."

* * *

_Lucy_

* * *

The funeral was absolutely dire.

You think that working in a hospital would mean avoiding funerals like the plague, but this was one I definitely had to go to. It was bad enough that it was for a five year old girl. And since the medical profession held quite a lot of the blame for Ellie's death, I hadn't felt like going it alone. So I took Kenneth with me. It wasn't so much a Christian funeral as a memorial, I knew Oliver's family weren't Christian, and since a lot of the attendees were vampyres, I wasn't sure what to expect, but we were in St. Mary's, the local church. I wondered briefly how some vamps would react, and I only hoped they could put it all aside to attend a little girl's funeral.

Clutching Kenneth's hand as we entered the church, I listened to the hushed voices and the sound of women's heels clacking on the stone floor.

"What's the matter?" he asked me, squeezing my hand gently.

I looked up at the ceiling of the church. "I dunno I thought I was gonna walk in here and be smited by lightning or something."

He chuckled. "Luce, if He can't smite murderers or rapists, what makes you think he's gonna smite you?"

Then I realised something, something that made me feel really warm and fuzzy on the inside.

I hadn't thought of Dr. Cilian in weeks.

"There's still time."

I had asked if Kenneth would ask Rie to come, after all, she had been Ellie's nurse too. But when I mentioned to him that I had accidentally told Anastasie about suspecting she'd imprinted with Oliver, he thought it would have been insensitive at his little sister's funeral. He was right, but I was still curious. Or I was still overreacting. I saw Anastasie enter alongside Yianna, and the two sat together near the middle of the church. I had half expected, given the circumstances, for Anastasie to be sitting with the family, helping with the kids, but Spiridion had taken over that role and there was nothing. The two didn't speak to each other for the entire duration. Even at the end when everyone was filtering out of the church and chatting to Oliver, Anastasie didn't once approach him, and he didn't once approach her.

"Are you still worrying about this?"

Kenneth squeezed my hand again. "I don't get it, Rie was so sure."

"There is a little matter of patient confidentiality." He said, "Rie could swear it upon her life, but she'd be violating every rule the hospital enforces. And so what?" he asked, "To me, she's eighteen Luce. You and I definitely aren't allowed to get off in the on-call room, but we do anyway. It seems fairly harmless."

I thought about it. I had never actually contemplated the harm, or lack thereof that it could do, it was just a bored attempt at satiating my curiosity. Maybe I was completely overreacting. "What do you think?"

He sighed. "Honestly?" he said, "I believe Rie. She wouldn't lie, and at the hospital, they looked thick as thieves. Do you know any other red vamps?"

"No."

"So unless one of them gets carted back in, there's no way of getting a second opinion."

I shook my head. "But how can they hide that from Yianna?" I wondered, "It must be a teacher's worst fear, to be caught having an affair with a student."

"I think he's got other things on his mind right now."

"True. You know..." I continued, "Maybe Rie was wrong, maybe it was just something else she sensed that was similar, I dunno, gratitude, concern for Ellie, emotions were raw that night, you said so yourself."

I saw Kenneth's eyes dart briefly to Yianna. "I hope it was." He said, "For his sake."

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

I was so pleased with the turnout to the funeral. So many people came, some people even I didn't know very well, and some locals, teachers from school, preschool teachers, nurses from the hospital, my colleagues. The kids were so brave too, I was so proud of them. They cried during the service, I had made sure to pack a million boxes of tissues. Especially Fran, you could tell she'd lost her other half. Spiridion had been so good to me, coming every day to help me look after them all. As I sat there in the pews at the front of the church, the town and it's dog sitting behind me, it made me realise how much of life there was that I didn't understand. Weeks before, I had crashed my car, because I was an idiot, and came out unscathed, and my little sister falls over in the school playground, and is gone a few weeks later. And believe me, there is nothing more soul-destroying in the world than seeing a tiny coffin at the front of a church.

I was standing at the door of the church for a good forty minutes while everybody filed out, shaking hands and accepting their condolences. Spiridion had taken the children home before all of that – I didn't want them to have to go through any more today. It felt like eternity, standing there, I could barely keep my eyes open I was so tired, all the coffee I had had to drink, all the Pro-Plus tablets, all the energy drinks, it had all worked to begin with and now it made no difference whatsoever, and I was still running on about two hours sleep a night. Even if I didn't have that nightmare, I still dreamt of mourning. Even if I slept, my mind didn't get any rest. How I wished I could bury it all.

The hurse had gone on to the crematorium, and only a few people remained. I saw Yianna talking to someone she clearly knew, and then Anastasie standing by Yianna's car waiting for her to finish. I could see from here she had been crying too, and felt a pang in my heart. Even with tear-stained cheeks and dressed for a funeral, she had a beauty about her, an air of sincerity that still turned my head, even after all this time. I had shaken Anastasie's hand at the porch, and that had been it, I hadn't exchanged words with her. That was something that I could only blame myself for. But I had to bite my lip, I was her teacher, I had a duty to her, and I had to put some distance between her and me. It was my own fault; she had attached onto my family so quickly, for lack of one herself. I sighed and gritted my teeth – I had given her a family and then torn it away from her again, without even realising. I was such an idiot. I had originally wanted to give her a place to stay in the summer holidays, but now I didn't even know if I still thought it was a good idea. I was afraid that she would become too attached to me, and plain terrified that I would become too attached to her. I was so very fond of her, only platonically, but I wasn't apathetic enough to detach myself properly. Inwardly the disappointment that I had failed at a very simple task like detachment ate at me like acid, but I yearned so desperately for company in that big old house, adult company, and, dare I say it, female company. But it could never be her.

The pressure to escape from this place was overpowering, pressing down on my shoulders as if to drive me out, and I was glad to leave. Just as I left the porch and was walking down the path to my car, the red yew berries squidging under my shoes as I went, someone behind me called out to me.

"Excuse me."

I turned, and blinked. It was the woman from my nightmare. That one that I saw peering around the door in the reflection of a mirror. Dear God... It was her, it was the same woman, same face, eyes, hair, Mark. She sounded as intimidating as she looked. I tried desperately to hide my shock as she caught up with me. Even she looked shocked, like I was a long lost friend. She looked me up and down, and, if at all possible, went even paler than she already was. Was she afraid of me? She looked it, her eyes wide and unbelieving, her face a picture of shock.

"By Nyx..." she whispered, standing there like she has just beheld a miracle. Her stare of shock turned into one of wariness, and I could quite feel the weight of her presence as she came up to me. "Good Lord..." she said, giving one single glum laugh and folding her arms, through her complete and utter disbelief however, there was a damp spark of happiness, I think.

"You're Oliver Pendragon?"

I shook her arm politely. "Yes." I said, "Um, I'm sorry I don't think we've met, how did you know my sister?"

"I'm afraid I didn't." She said, sympathy written on her striking face, "I'd just like to say how sorry I am for your loss."

"Do _I _know you?" I asked her, desperate to know who she was and why she had turned up at both my dream-suicide and my sister's funeral.

She looked at me for a moment. "You should." She said, "But I don't think you do." I blinked again, confused, and she looked apologetic. She bit her lip and shook her head, before looking me in the eye. "It's been a long time Oliver."

I was almost offended by this presumption of informality, but moreover I was shocked. "A long ti...I've never met you before in my life!" I exclaimed. She raised an elegant eyebrow, and I was confused already, I tried to wipe it away with a swipe of my hand over my forehead but that didn't seem to work, I looked at the path and then back to her.

"Like I said, I knew you a long time ago."

"I'm afraid I took a dashboard to the face a few weeks ago and there are still gaps in my memory." I told her, "Entirely my fault."

"Don't worry." She said, "I doubt you'd remember it anyway."

My eyes narrowed slightly. "So _how_ was it I knew you?"

She looked uncomfortable. "Tulsa." She said, "Excuse me." She walked around me, and out of the churchyard. As I watched her go, I saw Yianna and Anastasie, just about to get into Yianna's car to go back to the school, and Anastasie was planted there, staring at the blonde woman as she left and walked down the road, the fledgling's expression dangerously identical to mine. She saw me, and I began to make my way back to my car on the back car park. Racking my brains, for all I was worth, I was pretty sure I had never been to Tulsa in my life.

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

Excusing myself for a moment, I followed Oliver onto the church's rear car park. Who the Hell was that woman? And why couldn't she mind her own business?

"Oliver?" I called after him. He stopped in his tracks, "I need to talk to you."

He turned. "Not now Anastasie." He said, before walking on again.

"Who's that woman?" I asked, struggling to keep up with him without jogging, "What was she saying to you?"

"It doesn't concern you."

"_Yes it does_!"

My eyes grew wide at just how much I'd raised my voice. I hadn't intended to shout that loud, it sliced through the silence and he looked like I'd physically hit him. His eyes were dark, his face weary and his body weak, I could tell he hadn't been sleeping again. He stared at me for a moment, before sighing lightly.

"I was meeting Yianna outside her office to come here and I saw her, with a group of fledglings in the corridor, she stared right at me like she couldn't believe her eyes."

"You probably look like someone she knows."

"No, she definitely knew me, you should have seen it, it was like she'd seen a ghost."

"I'm sure she didn't mean to stare Anastasie."

I was so annoyed now I was fairly sure steam was going to spurt from my ears any minute now. "Oliver!" I shouted, clenching my fists beneath the slightly too-long sleeves of my black coat.

His features sharpened. "What is it?" he snapped.

"Since when did you stop listening to me?" I demanded, "Have I done something wrong, have I offended you in some way? Because _you _used to take me seriously. When everyone else thought I was nuts. And now it's all 'yes Anastasie, no Anastasie, three bags full Anastasie'. Why can't you have a conversation with me like you used to?"

He looked offended. "Why?" he asked, his fringe blowing in the wind, "Are they telling you I've lost it?" I remained silent, "I _have_ lost it Anastasie. Big time." His voice then became less angry and more upset, "I've lost everything." Again I was silent – what could I say? "And what I don't understand," he said, now angry again, "is how people expect me to be stronger. Especially people like you."

"They don't." I told him. "I don't."

"What is it Anastasie?" he asked wearily, "So I can go home."

I stepped closer towards him so I wasn't shouting over the wind and huddled inside my black coat. "Yianna says she's accompanying fledglings from the Tulsa House for the Vamp Symposium. Her name's Lenobia, does that ring any bells?" He thought for a moment, before shaking his head, "Me neither."

"I don't know what she was doing at the wake." He said, "I thought maybe she knew Ellie, although with that information I don't know how."

"What did she say to you?"

"Nothing." He said, wrinkling his nose, "Just her condolences."

"Oliver." I said, more sternly than I intended as I folded my arms across my chest, "Please stop lying to me." He blinked blankly like he couldn't believe his ears, and I had to finish what I had started. I took a breath of the cold air into my lungs in the hope that it would cleanse me of the guilt I felt interrogating him after Ellie's funeral. "She stared at you too and she got to you, I can see it."

"How so?"

"I know you." I said solemnly, "Better than you think."

"You know me?" he asked, his eyes glinting with fresh sorrow, "_You _know _me_?"

His brutality shocked me. I hadn't expected that reaction.

"You don't know me." He continued, shaking his head whilst keeping perfect eye contact with me, "This, responsible, level-headed, mature person, calm, clever and composed? You think it's me?"

"It's what you've made yourself."

"No." He shook his head again, "It's what other people have made me. It's what my family, my job, my _species _have made me!" he blinked and looked away from me, and rather at something in the distance, "Did you know, that when I turned sixteen my father told me to shape up or ship out? He told me that unless I pulled my act together, I was no son of his. And instead of waking up and smelling the coffee, it was like finally swallowing a sedative that I'm still on today."

And I swallowed my bitter guilt. Maybe he was right, I didn't know him as well as I thought I did. And still, I couldn't help but think that that little outspurt was to take my attention away from my original question.

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

Tulsa... Tulsa Tulsa Tulsa...

Still nothing.

I had been looking at the Tulsa House's website for nearly an hour now. Each department had its own page, with teacher profiles, famous alumni, various awards. I had found Lenobia's profile, she was the Head of Equestrian Studies. She had a lengthy and impressive biography, and ran an equestrian centre and riding school from the House site, with around fifty horses in total and employing ten full time staff. She was an FBHS (Fellow of the British Horse Society), of which there are only around sixty in the world, she'd been teaching at the House of Night for nearly two hundred years. As I read all of her achievements, there were still no bells ringing. And I had scoured all my old passports, travel documents; I had not once set foot in the USA. The House was famous because Zoey Redbird was its High Priestess, but out of the list of names, hers was the only one that was familiar, and that was because she was world-renowned, not because I had actually met her. They had a pretty strong Fencing Department as well, run by a chap called Damien Maslin. Again, heard of him, never actually met him. The American Houses didn't have a lot to do with the European Houses, preferring to keep to themselves. With no luck on the actual site, I typed it into Google. Newspaper articles flashed up, mostly for what had happened involving their rogue High Priestess about a hundred and fifty years ago, reports, death tolls, human speculations. Clicking on some of them, I realised that four members of staff died as a result, not to mention countless fledglings and warriors. Strangely, Lenobia was mentioned as one of Zoey Redbird's few surviving allies. Out of all the staff that had believed her, Lenobia was the only one still alive. Now that I found interesting. First, a teacher was decapitated and crucified, another was disembowelled, another had her throat slit, but in none of the articles, did it mention the death of the fourth person, even though most of them cited four. Maybe it had been too obscene for the tabloids to publish, or maybe there were secrets involved with it, but it was odd. Curious, I typed in vampyre obituaries, Tulsa, 2010. Several results came up, mostly out of old online newspapers. Scrolling down the fairly short list, there were four deaths cited within a few weeks. First Patricia Nolan, the drama teacher decapitated and crucified, then Loren Blake, the Poet Laureate, disembowelled, then Anastasia Lankford, her throat slit by a Raven Mocker. My hand gripped onto the mouse as an indescribable anger rose in my blood, and a horrible shiver ran down my spine. There wasn't a picture of her here, just a few paragraphs of her life. Disturbed by the sickness in my gut, I moved on to the next obituary. The next one, for a House of Night professor came a few weeks later, Bryan Lankford, the murdered woman's widower. I froze, and my stomach turned. I didn't even read the text. There was a picture of Bryan Lankford at the top of the page. I stared, so hard that I even forgot to breathe, and I heard my coffee mug smash on the floor.

I was staring at a picture of me.


	24. Persuasions

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

I didn't even bother trying to sleep that night. I had no idea how long I was sitting there, only when I heard my alarm clock go off upstairs in my room did I realise that it was six o' clock in the morning. Even then, I couldn't bring myself to drag myself upstairs to turn it off. Even after all those hours, the shock still hadn't subsided, locking my muscles in position, so that no whenever I tried to move, either pain or pins and needles shot up my limbs. The only muscles in my body that had moved were those controlling the mouse. I thought it had been some kind of a joke, something maybe the kids at school had come up with as a prank, but the longer my patience held, the more I found it in me to look; the more I wished that it was some kind of a joke. This man had my face, my hair (in a ponytail, allbeit), my Mark, my affinity! According to some old records on the British Fencing Association's website, he was my height and weight exactly. He was even ambidextrous, able to fence with either hand. Like I was. When I was a child I was going to be a leftie, but my mother, thinking that everything was easier if you were right-handed, kept switching my pencils into my right hand. I wrote with my right now, but I could still fence with either.

I scrolled through Google in a trance-like state, it literally, did feel like a dream, the constant uncertainty, the lack of sense laid out on the ground as standard, the general weirdness, I repeatedly pinched myself on the arm to remind myself that I wasn't asleep, and when I rolled up my sleeve it revealed several red marks where I had pinched and not let go while I looked at all these image results, just to convince myself it was real. I took a glance down at the floor beside me - I was glad that the kitchen floor was tiled, because I hadn't even moved to remove the shattered – and half-full - coffee mug from where it fell from my grasp eleven hours earlier.

If I entered 'Bryan Lankford' into Google Images, I would sit there and look at them all there lined up in rows and feel like one of those cartoon bluebottle flies with the same picture again and again repeated in little hexagons. My brain would overload and I would have to blink, but it would all still be there. Even when I closed my frickin' eyes it was all I could bloody see! For the past eleven hours I had only resolved one thing – that this was far too much for me to process in one day.

Bryan Lankford had been the Fencing Master of the Tulsa House from 2005 to 2010, and the vamp reigning world champion up until his death. His obituary said he was popular with the fledglings, acting like a father-figure when they needed one. My name was Oliver Pendragon, his nickname was 'Dragon', after his no-nonsense attitude, and his Mark. My Mark! I badly wanted all this to be a huge coincidence, that I was just the spitting image of him, but it ran far, far deeper than that. Oh God...

My head suck into my hands. Tulsa 2010. Four teachers dead. Three murdered. How I wouldn't mind to bet, that Bryan Lankford committed suicide.

* * *

_Lenobia_

* * *

Life throws you unexpected things sometimes.

Often it's a spanner into the works, or a bone to a pack of dogs, or a lifeline in dark waters. These things had stopped surprising me many years ago, I had learned to take them in my stride, after all, I was an old hat at 'unexpected'. Today, however, I think I may have just been proved wrong. It's not many days that you run into two of your best friends, who coincidentally have been dead for nearly one hundred and fifty years.

First there was Anastasia, sitting in the hallway, not yet Changed, looking sombre but meek as she tapped her fingers together outside the High Priestess' office. Nothing had changed about her. She was still beautiful and elegant, and still she had no idea that she was those things. She had that same gracefulness, the same eighteenth century posture. And, so I much suspected, the same power. Spellcaster, sorceress, witch, Anastasia had heard them all.

She caught me staring, and even stared back. She had no idea who I was. It was enough to make me wonder at first if the girl was simply a dead-ringer for her, and I was barking up the wrong tree entirely.

So it was her I had intended to talk to, when I followed them to that funeral. It was a spur of the moment thing to do, and yet it led me straight to him, and then I knew it couldn't have been a coincidence. Only once before had I seen Dragon look so worn down, and that was at the end. I had seen the sheer energy he had, the warm spirit in his eyes that this young man lacked. He was so very young, with no family and now seven siblings to provide for, one buried just yesterday morning. Dangerously exhausted, weak and depressed, he was a mere shadow of the man he should be. When I spoke to him his voice, that unmistakable British accent, it made me want to laugh with glee. I couldn't help but give a little chuckle to myself as I thought about it. Nyx was finally repaying them.

I listened to the kettle sing as the water for my cup of tea boiled, checking my phone yet again. No fledglings into any trouble yet. 'Yet' being the operative word. It was only a matter of time.

A knock on my door jolted me out of my train of thought, and I kicked my slippers on to go and answer it. The doors here didn't have peek-holes – hm, typical. I unlocked it and pulled it back, and stared straight into the face of Dragon Lankford.

"Oliver?" I said, just about remembering his new name. I was going to ask him what he was doing here, but he cut me off before I could say anything else.

"I buried my little sister yesterday." He said, his voice wavering, his eyes dark and tired, "I do _not_ have time to play games."

I opened the door fully. "Come in."

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

"Would you like some tea?"

"Have you got anything stronger?"

She laughed. "Just red wine unfortunately."

"That'll do."

She unscrewed the cork and poured me an extremely large glass. I knocked it back at a speed worthy of true Cambridge graduate, my eyes popping out of my head as I swallowed it down.

She raised an elegant eyebrow. "Another one?"

"Please."

She took my glass back and refilled it, before pouring one for herself. "So, it's, Oliver Pendragon, isn't it? You work here?"

"Believe it or not I'm the Fencing professor but I've had more days off sick than I have worked." I replied, throwing back more wine.

"Oh yes you said you'd had a rather unpleasant encounter with your dashboard."

"I fell asleep at the wheel." I said quietly, looking into the bottom of my wine glass as opposed to at my feet, feeling as ashamed as I looked. "I was such an idiot I have no idea why I even got in my car when I was so tired. And then, my sister..." my words trailed away to nothing as the full extent of what I'd permitted to happen crashed through the floodgates again. "How did you know I worked here?"

She looked sly. "Just a hunch." She shrugged. "So," she said, "to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I need to talk to you."

"I should think you do." Lenobia swallowed and kept her chin high, a little muscle in her neck tweaking. Whenever I tried to speak, I couldn't, I had no idea how I was going to express this to her without sounding like a loon. Every time I opened my mouth no sound came out. She made me nervous in ways I couldn't describe simply because she seemed to think that she knew more about me than I knew about myself. It was a pity vampyres didn't suffer the effects of alcohol, I could do with a bit of Dutch courage.

For a moment she looked so sad and so happy at the same time. "How old are you?" she asked me.

"I'm twenty-seven." My mouth answered for me, I was too dumb-struck by this entire situation to speak for myself. I downed more wine.

She looked at me with an amused expression. "Twenty-seven." She mused, just like a long lost relative at one of those cheesy family New Year's parties remarking at how much I'd grown, "I'm sorry, it's just, so odd to hear your voice again."

"_Stop it!_"

I was so annoyed at her that I think as I shouted my feet came off the floor. She wasn't startled at all, I half expected her to shout back at me, but she didn't, she went quiet again, like this time it was her turn to be lost for words, an opportunity I used to pull myself together and give her the evil eye for a change. The clock ticked on the wall behind me and reminded me of the time I was wasting here.

"Bryan Lankford killed himself didn't he?" I said, "That's why he's not officially a part of the 2010 death toll."

Raw silence. The clock ticked. Her face fell, and she looked at me through lidded eyes, but she was as cold as ice, like it hurt her as well.

"He impaled himself with an eighteenth century duelling rapier." I continued, "And you were the only witness."

"He was very dear friend of mine." She said bitterly, "Once."

"What happened?"

"I assure you this is as confusing for me as it is for you." She said, "I don't understand much of reincarnation, other than that injustice, is whatever form it affects us, tends to result in us being sent back." She studied me intently for a moment, before looking around her room, "Anastasia must be here." She said, her voice bouncing off the wood panels, "There is only one thing your soul would come back to this world for."

"Anastasia, his wife?"

She nodded. "Those two were inseparable." She said, "Ignore the tabloids, the facts. He died the day she did."

I didn't know if maybe it was the difference in phonetics, the americanised pronunciation of 'Anastasia' was quite different to the more French sound of its derivative. I couldn't work out why I hadn't noticed it before. The name rolled off my tongue so easily. It was like that awful moment you realise you've left your oven on, but it was a hundred times worse. I couldn't deny the fear in my blood, and every muscle in my began to curdle in cramp. I closed my eyes, wiped my brow with my fingers and composed myself.

"He wasn't close enough to help her, and that thing killed her." she waited for my reply, my sarcastic, witty reply, but I had nothing. "But Nyx forgave Rephaim."

"Rephaim?"

She gave me a knowing sideways glance. "The perpetrator." She said, continuing as she finished her wine, "Dragon lost every shattered shard of belief in Nyx he had left. He couldn't revive his mate, and Nyx didn't want him to avenge her. He found it insulting to her memory, and it completely destroyed him." Her grey eyes locked onto me again, and my skin burned like an ant underneath a magnifying glass.

"Listen," I said, crossing my legs and trying to sound vaguely legit, "I might be him in body, maybe even in spirit I don't know, but whatever this is, he hasn't come back." She looked up from her wine glass, "I'm a very different person."

"Then how did you know what happened to him?" she asked, "The suicide wasn't exactly made public."

"I don't know," I all but laughed, "Maybe it's muscle memory, it was his last moment. Look I'm sorry..." I said, trying to sympathise with her, "If you were such good friends I know this must be odd for you, but I am the person here now." I said, "I'm not him."

I fell silent, and she gave a small smile. "You have a very pure soul." She said slowly, "You always did have. Make sure you remember that."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"He died with a score to settle and nothing to lose." She told me, smirking a little. "You do the maths."

I shook my head to myself and blocked out her words. "Why can't my life be simple, just for one God-damn teeny-tiny day?" I said, "I stopped looking for trouble years ago."

"Well, whether you were looking or not..." she said, "You found her."

I scoffed. "Her name is Anastasie Parisien, I'm her tutor."

"Now that's very interesting." She said, her eyes glinting like she knew more.

"It most certainly is not." I retaliated, "She's a pupil, and I'm a teacher. I think that's enough said."

That eyebrow again. "Absolutely."

The sarcasm in her voice was so subtle and yet so obvious, and it was a sign, that I hadn't had enough wine for this. I put the glass back on the table and wrapped my coat around myself.

"Good night Lenobia."

"Get some sleep Oliver." She said, this time I sensed a little kindness from her, "You need it."

"Don't I know it."

Well I thought I had managed that well. As I closed the door behind me, I let out a sigh, and hardly one of relief. I had just about managed to carry that off, the dedicated teacher who would never get involved, who would remain completely platonic and professional towards his tutee. Only when I was far enough away to make sure that Lenobia would not be listening, did I begin to mutter curses under my breath. I cursed with every swear that I had ever come across at university (there were quite a few), most would have given anyone over thirty a heart-attack. I was trying to be confident that I was that responsible person, I was trying so, so hard. But the more I tried, it only served to reassure me that I was petrified. It wasn't that valiant fear for others, like I had felt for Ellie, it was that fear for my own skin that made my blood run cold as it clogged up my veins and made me struggle to breathe. I could say that Anastasie was just a pupil, to anyone, to myself, all I liked.

But it was a lie.

I did have, not feelings – persuasions, towards Anastasie. Infectious persuasions that brought me down quicker than illness, persuasions I was not proud of. Persuasions that made my heart skip a beat when I saw her, and persuasions of a more sexual nature. The clothes that were baggy on her when she was anorexically thin were tighter on her now, and when she walked away from me, for a split second I would wonder what it would be like to fuck her absolutely senseless. And then I would realise exactly what I was thinking and I would feel so low, no better and no more justified than a paedophile. It was something that a million showers just couldn't clean off me. Oh God oh God oh God... It was yet another disaster, which I had permitted to happen, and I was terrified. Shoving my hands deep into my pockets as a substitute for sitting on them while I was walking, I decided I would walk back tonight. The sea air and the sound of the calm summer water lapping at the shore was soothing, the sand soft under my feet. I could see my house from the beach, little lights at the windows, I could tell who was in bed on time and who wasn't. I stood there for a moment and watched the soft glow of each one, there was something about being out here after dark, as soon as the schools broke up this beach was covered in sunbathers and stripy umbrellas, and it got extremely littered. I just wanted to stay here, while it was still peaceful. I was so lucky. When my parents died, I had been the sole inheritor, bar the taxman. I had been able to keep the house, and keep my brothers and sisters, I'd even been able to keep the damn horse, that was very soon due to foal, there were mere weeks left to go. I could do all of this comfortably on my salary and with careful investment of the capital, and there had been no social services involved or mention of care homes. I didn't care how tired it made me, I would never be able to have children of my own, and here I was with the chance that most vampyres would give an arm and a leg for. I would never be able to do it again. And as I looked up at that house from the shoreside, the soft sea breeze coaxing me towards it, I knew that nothing would ever be worth it. Nothing could ever be worth the loss of my little brothers and sister, and their home, the only ounce of stability I had to offer them. It wasn't worth the salary that paid for them to have that. And I would never, _ever,_ even so much as take a risk in that direction. I was clear on what I had to do now, it would be something very painful to me, but it had to be done. I had no choice now.

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

Standing on the doorstep of Oliver's house, knocking on the door before entering was one of the weirdest things I had ever had to do. The amount of times I'd come and gone through here, I'd lost count. I was actually booked out on free time this time, as opposed to jumping out of the window. It was the first "free time" period this term, I had been doing some extra sessions with Gwenhwyfar, I had passed this year's S&R exams with flying colours, and I had started on next year's, and Gwenhwyfar had even been teaching me some things that weren't on our curriculum – I was finally getting a handle on my affinity, instead of making things in the room levitate whenever I got angry or upset. I quite wanted to celebrate tonight, but I doubted the people I had beaten to the top of the class would be wanting to celebrate it with me. Maybe I would still crack open some wine later, if I could get to a supermarket before they shut.

The door opened and I grinned. "Hey, I got your voicemail." I said. I had debilitated long and hard about how to go about talking to Oliver now, a week had gone by, he was still mourning his sister but I didn't want to bring it up. I had decided that the best thing to do would be to act completely normally, like it had never happened. Life had to shift back to normal eventually and I needed to try and speed that up, if I could. Oliver still looked awful, and he gave me a faint smile, but he couldn't look me in the eye. Odd. "You wanted to speak to me?"

"Yes, come in." He said, holding the door back for me as I wiped my shoes on the mat.

"How are you?" I asked him. I had been so desperate to talk to him. Once I knew everything that was going on in his life, I was able to comfort him, and now when I didn't I felt distanced from him.

"I'm alright." He said, "Getting on with it." he walked through to the kitchen ahead of me, "First of all, congratulations!"

I smiled as I sat myself down at the table. "Thanks!" I said, "It feels great to just have it all done now. Just one year to go."

"I bet." He said, pulling out a blue file from under a pile of stuff and sitting down with it. "Now," he continued, "I've been speaking to Professor Gwenhwyfar. I'll keep going, I know you can deal with it. She thinks, she thinks you would probably benefit from having a tutor that understands your affinity better."

"Well, I'm flattered..." I said, "But it is really necessary? I'd rather stay with you." I added, hoping it wouldn't sound too clingy.

He smiled again, but it was painful. "I'm flattered too." He said gently, "But actually, I've written to Yianna this morning, to ask from exemption from a tutor group next year."

"Why?"

"You know what's happened this year." He said, "And, I, can't take it anymore. I can't take the sleepless nights, days, whichever, I can't take the ridiculously early starts and late finishes at work when I have my siblings here, I have enough people depending on me, I can't stretch myself any further, and you know who I have to choose. My tutees deserve better." He said. "So you guys are all being reassigned."

"I'm sorry about that." I said. "We'll really miss you you know."

He smiled again. "No I'm just sorry it's come to this." He said, "Maybe when the kids are older and more capable of looking after themselves, I'll go back to it. You should have seen it in the staff room earlier; Gwenhwyfar was practically prepared to mud-wrestle for you."

I laughed at the thought of anyone wanting to mud-wrestle over me. I wonder if he'd mud-wrestle over me... "If you ever wanna talk..." I began to offer, "Or you need a sitter, you know where I am right?"

"Thank you." He said, "I'm afraid there's more, but it's slightly better news."

"Oh?"

He opened the blue file and pulled out some papers. "I saw you weren't making any progress on finding your sister. So..." he said, "I hired a private detective."

My jaw fell. "You did what?"

"I knew you couldn't afford it, so..."

My grin spread from ear to ear. "Oh my God Oliver..."

"And they got back to me within a few days." He went on, "Your sister is alive and well, and living in Devon, she's a real estate agent at Knight Frank."

He pushed one of the pieces of paper towards me, on which the detective's report was printed. There was a little passport-sized photograph of her paper-clipped to the top right hand corner – oh my God there she was, my big sister – my step-sister. I was surprised at how similar we looked, even though we actually weren't related by blood at all. She looked exactly the same as she did when we were tiny.

"She's married..." I said as I read through the document, "I can't believe it!"

"She's coming down to meet you this weekend." He told me, "She says she wrote to you, but she thinks your mother scrapped the letters."

I was speechless. "Thank you... Thank you so much..."

"Stasie?"

I turned my head towards the living room door, and saw five year-old Fran standing there, her dirty pink blanket in hand. When she saw me she bounced over like a spring lamb and bear-hugged me. Hugging her back, I realised I would probably never get to do this again, and held her even tighter. "Heya Fran." I said into her hair, "How you doing?"

"Stasie when are you coming back?"

It was heartbreaking. I hated having to answer to kids – they took everything to heart so much.

"Francesca Pendragon, what are you doing out of bed?" came Oliver's parent-like tone.

"I want some juice." She said, grinning.

"You can have some water." He said, pointing to the tap. We both watched as the little girl found herself a glass from the cupboard and stood on her tippy-toes to reach the tap. "Can I take it upstairs?"

Oliver nodded. "Night Fran."

"Night..."

I waited until after I was sure she had climbed the stairs and I could hear her feet padding along the landing. "How cute is she?" I asked, chuckling into my mug.

"I know." He said, "Pity they don't stay cute."

"Just think, they'll be all grown up one day."

"Hm..." he gave the idea some thought, but I didn't think he was thinking along the same lines as I was. Oliver was terrified of seeing them grow old without him, and that eventually, he would outlive them all. It was the vampyre's conundrum; loneliness. "Right." He said, "I'm just going out to check the horse and then I'm turning in."

"Can I come?" I asked, finishing my tea, "I bet she's huge now."

"That's an understatement."

He took our mugs and put them in the sink, before pulling his trainers off and tucking his jeans into wellies. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dark again as I followed Oliver out of the back door and down the path to the stables at the back of the garden. Whilst I knew Oliver could see in this dark, he still went to put the lights on, and I leant over the stable door and watched. As soon as I could see the mare I was sure there was something wrong. She was sweating, looked poor, and was restlessly walking around the stable and pawing at the floor. The bedding was completely trashed, and the water bucket had been knocked over.

Oliver's face looked like it should have been surprised, but it came out as a kind of weary expression, a meteor could have crashed in front of him, and it would have been the same expression.

"Oh fuck." He said.

I looked at the horse again, and my face quickly became a mirror image of his. Oh fuck.

"Please tell me she's not in labour?"


	25. New Life

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

**Me: Hiya all! Here's the next instalment. There is a lemon in this chapter, just so you know, although I doubt it'll stop anyone reading it haha. **

* * *

_Tell her to wash it in yonder dry well, _

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, _

_Which never sprung water nor rain ever fell, _

_And then she'll be a true love of mine._

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

"She's not in labour." I looked at him sideways through narrow eyes. "You said don't tell you."

"It was a rhetorical question."

"I'm just gonna go ring the vet – if she'll stand can you get a numnah and an anti-cast roller on her?"

I glanced at the foaling Pippa pacing it around the box and my lip tweaked, the thrashing horse was more than my match. "I can try."

With some considerably difficulty, I managed to catch the mare and fit the numnah and anti-cast roller. I hadn't worn the right shoes for this and there were now bits of shavings and stray hay collecting under my soles and sticking to my tights. I was glad to get out of there and close the door behind me knowing that my toes were still intact. As I kicked the kick-bolt over, I saw Oliver returning down the garden path, the kitchen phone in his hand, along with a large-ish box container and a bucket of what appeared to be hot water.

"Vet says let her get on with it." he said, "And to call him when it's out, or if it hasn't dropped within half an hour, so I'm gonna stick out here for a bit."

"Can I stay?" I asked him, hopeful that he would say yes, "I'd love to watch it be born."

He seemed to be contemplating it. "Why not?" he said with a quick and quirky smile, "If Pippa doesn't mind."

Excitement coursed through me at the thought of getting to watch Pippa's foal coming into the world. All my life I'd grown up in a city, and then come to the House of Night where we were pretty much kept under lock and key, coming to Oliver's was like stepping into a different world. Suddenly there was sea, sand, endless rocky green, the only real trace of the modern world was the main road that outlined the coastline, seemingly separating the sand from the green, but not even that was visible from the house itself. Even though the property wasn't a farm anymore, one of the few ancient outbuildings remained, and around about the garden, you could still see the remains of the foundations of others, you could feel them under your feet as you walked over the grass. I doubted Oliver had ever been from farming stock, but he still kept Pippa, his mother's beloved horse, and seven chickens, with a cockerel. Now all he needed was some spring lambs and he'd be able to open the place to the public as a tourist attraction.

Together we watched as the horse paced around in the box, pawing up the bedding, getting up, down, and then up again, going through episodes of contractions, and then getting up and moving around again. Bags of yellowish fluid began to appear from her vulva, and not long after that, a tiny foot appeared.

After about twenty-five minutes of getting up and down, Pippa finally got down and pushed some more, and I saw a nose, and then a bit more of the head, and gradually, little by little, the foal's entire head emerged, and then the neck. It looked like it was getting stuck at the elbows. Pippa groaned and pushed, but the elbows were still hard for her to get through.

Oliver washed his hands in the bucket of water and Hibiscrub that he'd brought back with him from the house, rolled up his sleeves, and opened the stable door. "Come and help me pull then." He said jokingly. Me? Washing my hands as he had, I followed him and crouched down beside the mare, careful not to get in the way of her back legs.

"Right," Oliver said, "We need to pull one elbow through at a time, so I'll pull mine first, then when I've got mine you pull your leg straight out behind her until that elbow pops through."

I did as I was told, and sure enough, it was easier to get one elbow through at a time than push both through as nature would have it. This was of course the widest part of the foal, and I didn't exactly envy Pippa as she lay there, groaning and pushing.

"Okay, now you need to pull downwards." He told me, "And we'll pull it clear."

"Okay." I said, nervously taking hold of the foal's hot and slippery leg again, and helping Oliver pull downwards, in the direction it was coming naturally. It literally took a few seconds, the foal slid from its mother fairly easily, and landed on the thick straw with a slight thud.

"Watch out." Said Oliver, and I moved out of the way quick enough to not be hit by one of Pippa's hinds as she got to her feet and turned around to inspect her baby. Oliver knelt by the side of the foal, rubbing its side with one hand, and poking the fingers of the other into the foal's nostrils to clear any fluid and to make it sneeze and start breathing.

"Oh look..." said Oliver with a grin, continuing to rub its side even after it had started breathing, "It's a ginge."

"So it is." It was a ginge. It was a beautiful little thing. I knelt on the opposite side of him, out of Pippa's way, straw, juice and muck all over me now. And the best thing – I didn't even care. Steam rose from the foal's body as Pippa began to proudly lick all the juices off it. It was all legs, with a tiny body and feet, and it had a little star on its forehead. Oliver wiped his gunk-covered hands on the straw and appeared to be looking for something.

"Anastasie, could you pass me the iodine?" he asked, it's in the foaling kit?"

"Oh, sure, it's the dark one right?"

"Yeah."

I passed him a spray bottle containing dark brown liquid, 'Tincture of Iodine' printed on the label. Oliver lifted the foal's hind leg, and sprayed the iodine onto its naval.

"Well, it's a boy." He said, replacing the leg and letting Pippa get on with it. He checked that Pippa had milk and made another phone call to the vet, before dropping onto the deep straw in the corner beside me.

"Aw look it's so gorgeous." I said, wiping my hands on the straw again for good measure. The foal's ears were so wet they looked plastered to the back of its head, its little body trembled as its mother cleaned it up. If that wasn't the sweetest thing I'd ever seen... "Isn't it just magic?" I whispered, my heart melting at the tiny creature there in the straw.

"Magic." Oliver whispered back, "A miracle."

I tore my eyes away to look at the foal. His eyes were filled with an innocent excitement, his face lit up, like a young child opening their presents on Christmas day. For the first time in months, even if it was just for one small moment that would revert as soon as he stepped inside that house a sibling short, I saw him happy. I saw him shine again, I heard his heart leap for joy. And as I did I became even happier too, at how well earned this simple moment was. His lips twitched, trying to hold back a smile or trying to decide what to say, and deciding not to say anything at all, but rather to savour it while it lasted. Oh Oliver, you sweet man, I thought to myself, you brilliant, caring, loving man. May this joy last a long, long time. I stared at him in awe, and prayed to whatever god of goddess that would listen, that life would be fairer to him, that he would get what he so deserved.

Suddenly, too quickly for me to react, he turned his head sideways and saw me looking at him. His brown eyes sparkled. "What?" he asked, eyeing me with discern.

Then, I took a really bold move. I couldn't explain it, the moment he said 'what?', it was like I fell off the edge of something. Like I had fallen off the cliff defining sanity and into the deep and violent waves of a trance. As I sank, trying to clear my clear and yet fuzzy vision, I came through it, and I saw something. I saw something in him that I hadn't seen before, something that made my action completely and utterly plausible, and it made perfect sense. In one easy motion, I swivelled to face him, leant forward and planted a ripe kiss on his mouth, leaning into him as he was somewhat taken aback by it. I expected him to grab my arms and push me away, tell me I was too young, tell me he was my teacher, I waited for it.

But it never came. I felt him kiss me back with an eagerness that made my head swim even more. He did place his hands on my arms, but they wandered from my arms and stopped holding me like a child, and started caressing me like a lover. I let my hands travel all over him – I could feel his muscles through his clothes, and what struck me was that none of this felt strange, or wrong, or awkward, as much as I was aware it was, it felt almost familiar, and God it felt so so good, all of me ached for him. In a split second he wasn't my teacher anymore, he was a man. He broke away gently, and I felt his cheek brush my neck, sending small tingles up my spine. It felt like he was going to kiss me, and for a moment it felt like he had, and then I felt a really sharp sting in my neck, which throbbed for a few seconds like it wasn't going to stop, which I worried would get worse, but it didn't, it throbbed, and then the pain slowly faded away into nothing. He was drinking from me. I never expected it to make me feel drowsy, but that's exactly what it was doing. The moment I felt his mouth come down on the cut on my neck, something deep inside me changed, a little bit like a gravitational force shifting. I made myself breathe and relax as he drank eagerly from the cut, his hands firmly on my arms. It started out as a pleasant tingling feeling, and I kept breathing as it got stronger, but I felt so sleepy, so light-headed, I leant my head against his as he drank, wallowing in this overly pleasant feeling. It was good – like a gentle ache that made my skin tingle. I closed my eyes and sat there as I fell deeper into the land of this beautiful stupor, I let my breath come deeper and faster as sexual energy filled me from head to toe, there was nothing else to think about – just him and me. We wriggled closer to each other, I let out a sigh as this feeling got a little bit stronger, and for the first time in my life I think I was horny enough to admit that I was. I could feel him catching his breath occasionally, I knew he was going through the same thing. His lips moved back to mine and I ravished them hungrily, not knowing if I would ever have this chance again. I knew it was wrong, so very deliciously wrong. It wasn't just the sensuality between us that stopped me from breaking it up. The reason I didn't want to stop, was because here, now, with him, I felt indescribably, inexplicably happy.

I don't know how long we were there, but it wasn't long enough. It only ended when we heard someone clear their throat loudly at the door. "Hope I'm not interrupting anything am I?"

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

Anastasie and I shot apart, both of us as red as a beetroot. I was fairly sure that I had never moved so fast in my life. I was up and ten feet away in a second. "Adrian." I said, angry, terrified, and annoyed all at once, "That was very quick."

The rather short large animal vet looked at the both of us like one of us had bitten him on the nose, and then he leant his head back and chuckled, his hand clutching his stethoscope to stop it falling off the back of his neck.

"I was at the surgery." He said, "What does surprise you that I was working this late?"

I raised a brow with sarcasm. "Not really no."

He looked from me, to Anastasie, who had got to her feet in the mean time and was, sensibly, leaving the stable at quite some considerable speed, and then back to me again. "Is it better if I don't ask?"

"Absolutely." I answered stoutly.

"Alrighty then."

Waiting for Adrian to examine the mare and foal was one of the most painstaking processes I had ever had to stand through. He listened to its heart, looked at its limbs, before pronouncing both mare and foal perfectly healthy, and to ring him again in six hours if she hadn't cleansed – passed the afterbirth – by then.

"Good stuff." He said, taking his stethoscope out of his ears and hanging it around his neck. "Well, when she cleanses I'll want to see it just to check there's no bits of it retained, so stick it in a bucket of water, and give me a call. If she hasn't passed within six hours, we treat that as an emergency, risk of pyometria you see, so yeah, let me know and I'll probably still be at my desk then."

"I don't doubt it." I said. "Thanks Adrian."

He waved goodbye and I wondered what it was I was thanking him for, checking my horse or keeping his silence. I doubted that vets heeded by patient confidentiality... I removed the anti-cast roller and the numnah from Pippa, and refilled her haynet and water, waiting until I heard Adrian's Mitsubishi Warrior go up the drive and down the road before I made my way back to the house. I wasn't even sure if Anastasie would still be here, for my own sake I hoped that she wasn't. I cringed inside again – I had drunk from her, it was her blood in my veins now as well as my own, and for the first time in a long time, I felt refreshed and strong. It clashed fiercely with the guilt and fear that was also clogging my arteries. Inside me, there was a very powerful desire for her, one, I realised as of twenty minutes ago, I did not have a handle on as I thought I had. I needed to go and stick my head in the freezer and cool it down – it hadn't quite sunk in yet, what I had just done, it was the shock that was tiding me over for the vet, the aftermath, I knew, was yet to come later this evening, collapsed on the sofa with a bottle of wine, which I would probably be praying to remove all memory of this evening. The tingling pleasure it had brought me was still too fresh for me to even think straight. I made a mental note to myself to find myself a good shrink in the morning.

As I closed the kitchen door behind me I had been fairly sure that I would be drinking tonight away, and if I lost any of my sorrows along with it then all the better. Just as I was about to reach for the fridge door to retrieve said drink, my eyes darted to the clock – one-thirteen am. But just as they did so, I saw I wasn't alone.

Anastasie was still here, standing in the kitchen, leaning against the sideboard, having removed her shoes and attempted to brush most of the straw and crap off of herself. Her nervousness struck me like a smack around the face, it was much like my own. Her hair was tangled and had the occasional piece of straw in it, her cheeks were rosy and she seemed a little out of breath.

"Er, hi..." she said.

"Hi..." I replied.

She stared.

I stared.

She stared. Oh God...

The sight of her lit me on fire and sent shivers up my spine. We collided in a cascade of ravenous kisses, hungry for each other in far too many ways... And Christ I was attracted to her, she had no idea how she controlled me. How I couldn't tear my eyes away from her when she walked away from me, how thoughts of a distinctly more sexual nature flashed before my eyes when I did feeling inside me intensified tenfold when my lips touched hers, and she didn't reject me, Jesus I was turned on! My hand took on a life of its own and ran down her thigh, drawing her knee past my waist. I kept thinking about the part of me that was normally in control, how he wouldn't want this to be happening, but I couldn't care less. I could smell her blood, hear her pulse, feel her hands in my hair. My stomach knotted itself into a thousand knots as she clasped my hand in hers and slid it up onto her right breast. And if that wasn't a shock, it certainly was when she placed her hand on my crotch and rubbed. I almost yelped and jumped out of my skin, but for it I could only kiss her harder.

"Come upstairs..." she breathed, pausing to moan, "The kids are asleep come upstairs..."

I answered with another kiss and she pulled me towards the stairs. Trying to climb old creaky stairs silently was bad enough, trying to hold back our laughter at the same time was harder. As soon as my bedroom door was closed we were pressed together again, pulling our clothes off like a couple of drunkards. How long had it been for me now? Not since uni? I'd thrown myself into working and providing for my siblings, and the stress had turned me into an asexual being. I'd forgotten how damn good it was. Was it wrong to want this? Answer: Yes. She must want me – why would she do that to me otherwise? And her sense of humour isn't sadistic enough to do it for a laugh. We fell roughly on the bed, rolling and writhing and thrashing. She squirmed beneath me and I was ashamed to say I enjoyed it. Her blood was delicious. I stopped drinking to kiss her neck and she tilted her neck and bit me. It caught me by surprise - I hadn't been bitten in years, actually not since school, I'd had a few relationships at university, but they were with humans, and since leaving I hadn't even had the time to contemplate it, and Anastasie was almost an adult vamp. It's different, when you're the drinker you feel the sexual pleasure but you also focus on the taste of the blood, the actual drinking itself, the feeling as it goes down your throat, and when you're the donor, you don't have that to distract you, and it's bloody good. I eased my knees back and lowered myself on top of her gently. When she sensed my movement she stopped drinking, and let her head loll.

"Oliver..." she murmured, and for a moment, she was that sweet, sane person that I knew again, not the sexy sultry one I saw now. "I like this."

"What is this?" I asked her. I cringed inside as the internal conflict I'd been having with myself for ages returned. I should not feel the way I do about her. I couldn't even begin to contemplate it when I could barely acknowledge it to myself. And yet the moment I had acknowledged it, the only thing I could tell myself was that I could keep it to myself and it would all be alright. I was in love with her, but that didn't mean I had to touch her. I didn't have to lay a finger of her, I could keep it to myself with no harm done. And it had worked with some success. But the more she waltzed around in my life as if it were her own, the more pathetic I became, until I was desperately in love with her, and that wasn't enough. I badly wanted to express what I felt for her, I couldn't do it through that. My desire to give her everything I was was laced with a repressed sexual undertone that was also becoming overpowering. At the moment all I could think about her body beneath mine and how much I wanted her, the sheer pleasure I wanted to give her. I'd tried to push it to the back of my head, because the more I thought about who she was and who I was, the physically sicker it made me feel. I kissed her neck, and as much of her chest of her fairly low cut shirt would let me. Was the small size of the chance that we would be caught in the act enough to defeat me? And was she even ready for that? I felt her hands run over my hips and clasp my arse firmly and I wondered...

"It's wonderful." She smiled, "It's all I want..."

I kissed her mouth and pressed myself against her, our tongues fighting quite violently. She must know I want her, I was starting to get noticeably hard, she must know. She pulled my body towards her, and I tensed as she raised her knees either side of me.

I broke the kiss and leant my head on her shoulder. "_Anastasie..._" I whispered, "_This is wrong..._"

"_I know..." _she replied, "_And I don't care... It's all I want... You're all I want..._"

I sighed into her collar. "_I want you..._" I said, my voice deep and rasping, I didn't want her, I needed her. I drank from her neck again, my need going from rational to feral and uncontrollable.

Her fast breath passed by my ear and made me tingle. "_I want you..._" she whispered back, _"So much..._"

She rubbed her hips against mine, the short yet heavy friction between us drove me mad. I was stalling – trying to see whether or not I could actually conjure the strength to do the right thing and stop. I couldn't. I was mad to be doing this. She was mad to be letting me. The moment I tasted her blood on my tongue, I wasn't a person anymore, I was a vampyre. A lustful, sex-craving vampyre. The shame that had always burned into me for craving her, making me wish I'd never met her, but also, strangely, making me thankful I was alive, sat in my stomach as ever, but now it was becoming lost amongst the other nauseating feelings, completely drowned out by the sheer anticipation. Suddenly there was nothing strange about drinking her blood, it wasn't about the future, it wasn't about consequences, it was about fulfilling desires, and my brain was hazing over with desire. Suddenly she wasn't a pupil anymore, she was a woman, a beautiful woman with voluptuous curves that made me weak, with large breasts and full thighs, smooth skin, long blonde hair. Christ I wanted her, I wanted to do so many things to her my head reeled in and out. I wanted to make her orgasm again and again until neither of us could walk, I wanted to make her scream my name, beg me for more. My hands left her arms, tracing her figure as my body filled with lust. She did the same to me, sending shivers through me. Ah damn it how could something so wrong, so twisted feel so right? She began to moan, every little sound multiplying my own pleasure into infinite numbers. I let myself groan as I drank, God I didn't know if it was her blood or merely the sight of her, but she was making me even harder. I knew it was wrong! I knew, I knew but I couldn't stop. I kissed her mouth hard and I lost all sense of reasoning. Aahh, she was wet and I could smell it, fuck, I was going to make her mine! I didn't have enough hands to enjoy her properly! Pushing one up her skirt and past her knickers I slid my fingers into her. She stifled a groan and bucked as I stroked and stretched her. The door was thick but we would still have to try and be quiet.

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

The feeling of Oliver's fingers inside me was so weird, and shocked me in a way that almost made me freeze. Weird but good. I breathed and relaxed as this new feeling spread through me. He didn't let me pause for thought. I'll admit, I've daydreamed about this moment, and yet whenever I've daydreamed about it, I've got to this stage, and my nervousness kills everything, I freeze. I suddenly feel ashamed for thinking about it, but whenever I have, it's been my imagination making it up, I would know what was coming, and now it was his, I couldn't predict it or rewrite it, and it was better than I could have daydreamed it. He had been right, it wasn't just a little sexual stimulation that occurred in blood-drinking, it was like sex. But it wasn't just the blood. The blood was only repeating to me what I knew in the first place. But I loved him, I shouldn't love him, he shouldn't love me, and yet I loved him more than I thought possible. My clumsy fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. Our bodies told us we needed each other, that we were desperate for it. Oh God... I leaned my head back and pressed myself onto him - for the first time, without a shadow of a doubt or an ounce of worry, I _wanted_ to have sex with him. I _wanted _him inside me, I wanted him to fuck me absolutely senseless. I felt like one of those sluts - I would throw myself at him for it. His lips moved from my cut to my mouth, then down my neck. He undid my buttons with his other hand and continued kissing me, over my chest and stomach, sliding down my body, and sliding my skirt up as he did so. He began to kiss the inside of my thigh, moving upwards and inwards. His dark brown eyes met mine for a moment, shining lustfully in the dim light. He gave a groan through closed lips.

"Oliver..." I started, his name slurring into a sigh as I felt his mouth – and tongue – on the fabric of my knickers. I can't believe this is happening... His tongue darted to skin at the edge of the fabric and back again, taking deep slow sucks. I closed my eyes and kept breathing – he was being slow, tantalisingly slow, and I knew he was doing it on purpose. Come on Oliver give me more... he continued for a moment, before rising up and ferally pulling my knickers off, practically falling on me again. I let out a small moan and then I couldn't stop my voice from sounding – his tongue was hot against my skin, and even hotter inside me. Oh my God – what he was doing was akin to magic! He went deeper and deeper in and all I could do was lie there writhing as my pleasure multiplied and spread like a fire inside me, as it slowly and painfully reached a peak and exploded. I cried out and panted as it filled me like a warmth. This was the first orgasm I'd ever had, and damn, now I knew why everyone was so obsessed with sex. Oliver wiped his mouth on his sleeve, leant up on his elbows and looked very pleased with himself. I had to laugh between exhalations, he was like the cat that had the cream. And oh, sorry, that wasn't supposed to sound like that... He crawled back up on top of me looking much like a predator coming in for the kill. I'd probably kiss him and taste nothing but myself for the rest of the night, but at this point I really didn't care. As soon as I could reach I yanked his shirt off his shoulders and reached for his belt, roughly undoing it and unzipping his trousers. I pulled them down with his boxers as well, while he pulled off my skirt, and then pulled my shirt off completely. I felt his one hand unhook my bra, and then relieve me of it all together. I sighed – we were completely naked, our skin sliding with the sweat we'd worked up. He caressed my breasts, leaning down to kiss them, his tongue making my nipples hard. I rubbed my hips against his – Christ we were so close! I clamped my thighs around him and put a hand down there as I rubbed, as I teased him my joy became ecstatic at his cries of 'oh God' became dangerously loud. I guided him into me, holding onto him for dear life as he filled every single part of me. The pain was momentary, replaced by an all new calm, a new level. He kissed me again, our tongues entwining, as he began to gently swing his hips into me. My body tightened around him, causing him to moan and cry out more. We thrusted harder and harder, losing ourselves to our desires. It was beautiful, wonderful, indescribable.

He came just before me, that burning of semen inside me set me off. My hips kept working desperately to make the feeling last longer. He collapsed on top of me, and I felt relaxed, I felt satisfied, I felt like a woman. I wrapped my limbs around him – I didn't want him out yet. I never wanted him out now. I felt his breath on the side of my neck as we panted for air, him leaving butterfly kisses on my neck.

"_Anastasia..." _he breathed into my ear, like it was the last word he would ever utter. I didn't want to correct him. If he wanted to call me that I would give anything for it to be my real name. It was like both of us were in a drunken stupor. Fully coherent but not coherent at all, trying to pretend we weren't who we were. So we weren't teacher and pupil, we were lovers. I was so tired, I wanted to sleep, and yet I didn't. If I slept, I would wake up and we would be teacher and pupil once more, having to live with what we had done, and if I didn't sleep, one of us would knock themselves out of this eventually, sleep meant to lie next to him for longer. We lay there together, sticky sweaty and completely exhausted, not saying a word.

We'd deal with it tomorrow.

_Tomorrow... _


	26. Better Forgotten

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

**Me: Hi guys, I've finally been able to read Dragon's Oath. There is a small alteration in one of the dream sequences in chapter 17 just to support the backstory, as the whole idea of this was to stay as close as possible to the books, I've done plenty of fics where I haven't so I wanted this one to at least slot in with the books. Anyway there are spoilers for Dragon's Oath there and from here on too. **

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

I have never, ever, been one to wake up in the morning and not remember what I did the night before.

There were many things I hated about the modern British binging culture. The older I got, the more I was exposed to it – expected to abide by it, the more and more I found myself wanting to slam my head against the nearest wall whenever I so much as gave it an ounce of my brain capacity, and this was without a doubt number one on my rapidly growing list of umbridges. Stupid airheaded girls with nothing better to do than crawl around in the gutter on their hands and knees, drop their knickers and fall into a stranger's bed. I was much better than that. And now I had the strength to resist, to deliberately step out of line and sling the finger to it, and from the moment I had that courage, it became a door I had closed, locked, and thrown the key into a volcano.

So why wasn't I in my own bed?

This one was considerably more comfortable than mine at school, where I could feel every single bloody spring, the sheet was smooth under my skin and the duvet had moulded to my shape, pressing me down into the mattress as if to make me lie there. Curled up on my left side, I felt light streaming through a gap in the curtains stinging my eyelids. But mine were on the right hand side of my bed. And why was I waking up in daylight hours when I was supposed to be nocturnal?

The air was coolish, if a little stale, and as I rubbed my cheek against the fibres of the pillow, I realised this one was cotton, not God-knows-what percent polyester. Where was I? What had I been doing the night before? I had been to see Oliver, he was telling me about not being a tutor next year, and then there was the horse...

I couldn't have been drunk - I'd never been drunk in my life. Never ever really felt the need to, there was nothing about crawling around on my hands and knees in the gutter that appealed to me, and now that I was almost into the fourth year of Change I could officially no longer become intoxicated, my liver broke it down faster than it could accumulate in my blood to the point where it would affect me. No sleep lost there, although I imagined that this was probably what it felt like. Just then my right eye winced - my head throbbed like a sledgehammer pounding on the inside my skull, and the moment I realised I was awake, fatigue made me want to fall asleep again, like I hadn't even slept, like I'd had no rest whatsoever. Oh God why couldn't I remember what I did..?

I raised my hand to my eyes to wipe the sleep away, and blinked. I knew this room – this was Oliver's room. Suddenly wide awake, I looked over my shoulder, and saw Oliver, fast asleep beside me.

What the Hell was I doing in Oliver's bed?

And – my heart failed – naked?

_What the fuck?_

I went very, very cold. When I tried to move, every muscle in my body screamed with cramp telling me to lie still. It didn't matter, as I froze solid when my leg ran over a damp patch on the bedsheet.

We haven't...

_Oh good God..._

No no no no no...

But I don't remember doing it! I don't remember so much as touching a hair on his head! Oh God I remember Pippa foaling, I remember thinking the foal looked odd with steam rising from its coat and its ears all slicked back, and then Oliver sat down next to me, and then... It wasn't that everything was a complete blank, if I had woken up in my own bed today, the pain down there asides, I probably wouldn't have even known I'd done it.

Scanning the room for torn packets and discarded plastic, I couldn't see any immediate evidence that we'd used any contraception. And while I knew from Sociology classes that I could no longer get drunk, I had _absolutely_ _no clue_, whether I could still get pregnant...

Panicking, I threw the bedclothes off me and started to look for my clothes, which coincidentally happened to be strewn all over the floor in a pattern that led from the door to the bed. I was embarrassed enough, what the fuck had I done? I pulled my clothes back on, well aware of how much I was dying for a shower, but there was no way I was hanging around here for any longer than it took me to make myself decent and go. Pulling my coat around my shoulders, I climbed down the stairs – it was half past five in the morning, just getting light, hopefully none of the kids would be up yet but with them being so young it was never guaranteed. I even found myself wondering if it had been good... Oh Nyx – for whatever rhyme or reason last night happened, I wish I could remember... Actually, I pondered as I tiptoed to the front door and silently unlocked it, maybe, just maybe it was better that I didn't. If I could remember, it would in all likelihood be something that I would want to forget. I had to get back to school now, I would have been missing for a whole day, we were post-exams but still! I locked the door again using the spare from under the flowerpot on the doorstep, leaving Oliver's inside on the key-rack, and replaced the spare, wiping the dirt from it on my fingers onto my coat. How was I going to explain randomly spending the night there to Yianna? Jesus what if Yianna saw right through me – it would certainly be my worst fear – if she ever found out, it would mean the end of Oliver's career, he wouldn't ever get another teaching job again? Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck what have I done?

I ran. As soon as I was clear of the house I ran, as fast as my aching feet would take me, towards the shore. It was a misty morning – good, I thought, at least I wouldn't be seen sneaking back. The light fog made me feel comfortable, no one knew. I dreaded the moment I would have to walk into school and once again walk beneath electric lightbulbs that questioned my every step over a black and white checked tile floor. It had never occurred to me that I should have organised my pillows under my duvet to make it look like I was sleeping when I left yesterday. As the rising Sun began to sting at my eyes as I crossed the bay I wondered if the tears that were running down my cheeks were due to the light or due to the guilt that was making me feel lower than dirt.

_But I didn't remember it..._

_I didn't remember anything..._

* * *

_Spiridion_

* * *

I arrived to start the morning's labour - the fruits of which were fairly non-existent, a lunch break was considered a treat – at half seven, the absolute latest I had to be to get the kids out of bed, throw breakfast at them and be ready to leave for school at eight. It was only after two hundred years of working with them that I realised I wasn't all that into children... Wincing, I decided to count my blessings – at least all of them were potty-trained... The groanings from my back were almost as loud as those coming out of my mouth – Christ I was getting too old for this – as I bent down to source the spare key out from underneath the stone flowerpot by the door, brushing the thin layer of compost off my hands as I did so. There was a nice mist over the bay this morning, the seagulls sung as they flew over my head, ready to drop another day's birdshit onto my head. Drawing myself up straight and slotting the key into the door, and of course the bloody thing has to be reinserted and jiggled several times before it would turn. I may have had a slight inkling that today was not going to be my day. The array of school backpacks and reading bags was astronomical, a man could get lost in that. It took a huge extended step to clear the lot and make my way into the kitchen. The kids were up as normal. The man was not.

As I hung up my coat and entered the kitchen, someone small walked straight into me. "Hey," I said, realising it was Charlie, "where's your brother?"

"In bed." The kid replied, the sides of his mouth covered in what looked like Marmite – stupid child, Marmite indeed!

"And what is he doing there?"

"Sleeping."

Mentally slapping myself around the face, I forgot that kids didn't generally get sarcasm. Never mind. The muscles in my left arm grumbled as I forced them to drag me up the two flights of stairs to the top floor. Oliver's door was closed, and I didn't bother to knock. The moment I did, I half expected to get my head bitten off by a late half-dressed vampyre, but strangely, I didn't.

The lad was in a coma. I sighed and shook my head to myself. The room was silent – not even so much as a snore, but the smells in it spoke volumes. Firstly, it smelled of sex. I didn't blame the boy for jerking off once in a while, anything to take the pressure off, that's healthy enough. And then, I smelled something else. A hint of Lily of the Valley...

Trudging into the ensuite, I filled a glass with water from the tap, carried it back through, and promptly chucked it bang smack over his face. That woke the boy up. Spluttering, his reaction was so priceless I would have laughed had it not been for my earlier thoughts.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" I chided.

"What time is it?" he said, looking at his clock, and then staring at it for a moment. "Oh shit." He kicked his arse into gear, threw the covers off, only to find that he had somehow managed to mislay his pyjamas. He stared again. "Oh."

"Had a guest over last night Oliver?" I winked at him and he wiped his eyes.

"I wish?" he replied innocently, reaching for some clean boxers. "Sadly not."

"That's not what it smells like."

"Eh?"

I took another whiff, and confirmed it to myself. "That's Anastasie's perfume isn't it?"

"What is?"

"The Lily of the Valley." I said. To be honest, a human wouldn't have detected it, but we were two vamps. "You two have a little fun did you?"

He looked mortified. "What?" he scoffed, "Spiridion, I can't believe you'd suggest that."

"Are you sure?"

"I think I'd remember."

"Well one would hope so."

"She left last night after Pippa foaled down." He said, "And why is it you're so familiar with her perfume?"

"I was her tutor for two and a half years wasn't I?"

"I know that for you this must be something akin to striking piss-taking gold." He said. I grinned imperviously, "But that's ridiculous as well as offensive." He started pulling on clean socks, "Besides, Anastasie has been in here before she left, you're just picking up remnants."

"Oh she's been in here _before_ has she?"

"I'm starting to see why Yianna fired you."

I scowled. "I was not fired."

"You jumped before you were pushed." he said, standing up as if to draw himself up to his full height, which was still well below mine at any rate. "And now, I have to make up for the fact I overslept this morning."

He walked past me, almost close enough to brush my shoulder. I could tell he was tempted – what was he gonna brush? My elbow? My eyes followed him sideways as he went, and looked around the room again. I took a sniff again, and promptly wondered if I was starting to take myself too seriously.

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

I couldn't believe I'd overslept again.

And I'd had plenty of sleep last night. Completely dreamless, a complete blank. Lovely. As I went I found yet another pulled muscle and stumbled - pity I was the least coordinated I'd been in ages.

Spiridion was right, the room did smell of sex, and there were hints of Anastasie's perfume, when there definitely hadn't been the last time I was in there. I remembered that time when I was in the car with her, when I could still smell it even when she wasn't wearing it. It was a little bit odd, granted. And the sex – they say you only remember dreams if you wake up during them, maybe I'd had a good dream for once. Taking a whiff as I re-entered, locked the door behind me and started to peel off my clothes for the shower I hadn't had time for before seeing the kids off for school, it must have been a very good dream.

The shower was bliss, I didn't want to turn off the hot water and get dry. The thought of a warm bed and more sleep would have encouraged me to do so, but as it had it neither of those things were an option for me at the moment. Wrapping a towel around my waist, I went and opened the window to let the steam out, as I always did in order to stop the plasterwork from getting damp. The view was of my mother's old vegetable patch, now completely disused and full of weeds. One of these days, I'll have time to clear it. Scoffing to myself as the breeze dried my face and upper body, I knew I never would. I'd been saying it all year, and yet I never have done it. All of that side of the garden was a mess, dead plants lay left right and centre, parched of water in the summer months or killed by the winter frosts. I often wished before I opened that window that it would fix itself. Of course it never did. It was still the same old weed-infested patch of crap. As I looked over it once again, however, something caught my eye.

It was a sunflower. I remembered now – it was one that Alex had brought home for a school project – he had to look after it and measure it every day. Of course it was me that ended up looking after it and measuring it, and eventually, I had run out of time / forgotten to look after it. I had been so sure that it was dead; I know they're resilient things, but it had had literally nothing for over a year now. Its leaves had long been brown and shrivelled, and it hadn't bloomed in months. I must have been mistaken, as now before me it was as alive as I was. Facing out east towards the Sun, it had a rich array of orangey-yellow petals and full green leaves. I let it enchant me for a moment – it was beautiful. I didn't know how it was alive after all this time, but it was a good thing.

Definitely a good thing.

Indistinctly cheered up by this, I remembered that the foal needed a vet check and a tet shot. Pulling some clean clothes on and leaving the windows open to disperse the smell, I found the phone and punched in the vets' number.

"_Good morning, veterinary surgery."_

"Oh hi could you put me through to large animal please?"

"_One moment." _There was a click, and then a different voice spoke. _"Hello Ruth speaking, how can I help?"_

"Hi Ruth, could I speak to Adrian please?"

"_I'll just check he's here."_ Said the woman, before putting me on hold again. About a minute passed, before it was picked up again.

"_Adrian speaking." _

"Hi Adrian it's Oliver Pendragon."

"_Oliver! What can I do for you?"_

"My mare foaled during the night, I was wondering if you could come and check her over for me?"

"_Has she not cleansed yet?"_

"Yes she has, but the foal just needs a check and a tetanus shot."

There was a small silence. _"I gave it the tet shot last night when I checked it over."_ Said the vet, _"It seemed fine then, has it gone downhill since then?"_

Lost for words for a moment, I went my lip. "You came last night?"

"_Yes."_ He said, a little puzzled, before laughing heartily. _"Oh Oliver!"_ he said, _"Old age has caught up with you at last!"_

"You checked it last night?"

"_Of course! It says here on my mobile you called me at 10:57pm and at 12:30am."_

What the fuck was wrong with me?

I put my head in my hands. "I'm sorry Adrian I'm really not with it today."

"_Whatever you're on, I want some of it."_ He said, _"But if you're not happy with the foal I can come out again it you'd like."_

"No, no that won't be necessary. Thanks Adrian I'll get out of your way."

"_No worries. Keep me posted."_

"Will do. Bye."

Hanging up, I felt like a proper idiot. He'd already been last night? But how could that be? I bewilderedly thought, when I have no memory of it at all?

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

After having managed to get back down to my room without being noticed, I jerked at the key, threw the door open and flicked the light on, like a victim in a horror film waiting to be found. As I turned around after shutting the door as quietly as I could – not that anybody would be listening – I jumped out of my skin as I noticed that someone was sitting on my bed, waiting for me.

Gwenhwyfar's long white hair contrasted her young face, no matter how stern she was, she never looked any older. She sat on the edge of my bed, her legs and arms crossed diligently.

"It's not like you to miss Spells & Rituals." She said, "Or any of your other classes, for that matter."

"Professor, I can explain."

"Yes, you can." She said, "Where you've been and what you were doing."

"I've been helping Oliv- Professor Pendragon, his mare foaled down last night."

"And that took you six hours?"

My brain fumbled desperately for an excuse. "I had to help pull the foal out, it took longer than we expected." I blagged, "And then I'm afraid I got fluid all over my clothes. I used a spell to remove it, it just took me a long time."

Gwenhwyfar raised an elegant eyebrow. "It would have been quicker to put them in a washing machine."

"It would, but that would have involved taking them off."

She blinked as she read my message. "True."

"And we talk a lot."

"What you and the horse?"

"I just lost track of the time." I said, trying to sound as innocent as possible, "I'm sorry, I'll catch up with all my classes."

Gwenhwyfar sighed. "Alright. But please try to get back on time next time would you?"

"I promise." I said, "Professor?" I asked, as she got up to leave.

"Yes?"

"I would prefer if Yianna didn't know about this. I'm in her bad books enough as it is."

"Well then best not to get into my bad books." She said as she closed the door behind her, and was gone. I breathed a sigh of relief. I may be able to fool Gwenhwyfar, but I would have to avoid Yianna like the plague. For both our sakes.

Collapsing on the bed after I could no longer hear her heeled boots clacking along the stone hallway, I closed my eyes and wished the ground would just swallow me up. How did I get myself into this mess? My stomach sank as I thought of what it must have been like, kissing him, his weight on top of me, drinking from each other (I imagine we did it), making love, and yet at the same time, my heart fluttered. I was slipping and sliding down a gradient that was getting steeper and steeper every time I cared to take a good look at it. Every time I saw Oliver now, every time I even thought of him, my heart softened and folded in on itself, my breath caught in my throat. Oh God I couldn't do this to him! When I thought of him holding me, kissing me, my knees went weak, I tingled under his touch and I thought only of listening for his thudding heart under my palm.

I remembered back to that dream I had had, months ago. At the time I had passed it off as just a weird dream, but now... How the ghost in that dream had called me his own, his priestess, and how Oliver had called me that in the hospital only days before. How the ghost had looked at me, the emotion in his beautiful eyes, belonging only to someone who was madly in love. "You see the vampyre you _do _love." He had said. That kiss, when he kissed me, it was identical to Oliver's, in every little way.

I needed to shower this off, quickly. Pulling my crumpled clothes off, almost tearing the buttons on my blouse, I stepped into the shower before it was even hot and shivered under the water for a moment, and even when the water ran hot I didn't stop shivering. I felt so ashamed. I couldn't wash that touch off me, that touch that was a spectre itself inside my memory, and I still couldn't wash it clean. I had been right before. It was better to forget.

_But I can see you now..._

_And I don't want to forget._


	27. Terms and Conditions

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

_Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn,_

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,_

_Which never bore blossom since Adam was born,_

_And then she'll be a true love of mine._

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

The phone call I got from Reception at lunchtime that day almost had my heart in my throat. The vampyre who worked on Reception, Yianna's secretary, a smart and organised brunette by the name of Saphina, did not usually make phone calls to the fledglings. An email was usually sufficient, but a phone call was more serious. I felt like I was being summoned by Hell, standing before a tribunal consisting of Nyx, whatever the vampyres believed ruled Hell and every other God I could ever answer to, waiting for them to decide if I would go on to the Otherworld, or if I would burn. My veins froze once again as her voice, calm and smooth, told me that I needed to come down to Reception, because a parcel had been delivered for me. I breathed an imaginary sigh of relief at the message as she went on to explain that her computer had broken down and hence the phone call.

I knew I was being silly. How could she have known? I had deliberately avoided crossing paths with Yianna and it seemed to have worked. I would have to be careful though, I knew, because you never say never with vampyres.

I chose my timing carefully, I had been intending to attend some of the lectures at the Symposium, which ran every hour in the Crown Hall, but in light of recent events I had decided that perhaps it might not be such a good idea. I went when I knew Yianna was out of her office, when I knew she was giving a lecture herself, before I walked across the marble lobby floor to retrieve my post. Even Saphina's friendly smile made me nervous. Act normally, I told myself, or she will know.

I waited until I got back to my room to open my package. There was no message with it. Not even so much as a return-to-sender address. I hadn't ordered anything, so what was it? Pulling at the sellotape sticking the brown paper together, I pulled the object clear and stared.

It was a smallish, maybe A5-sized black leather-bound book. No title, no author, no nothing. The edges of the leather were soft and worn against my fingertips, like they had been turned fondly over many years of reliving the memories they contained. Opening the cover, I saw, it was a photo album. Why would a stranger send me a photo album?

My first thought was that it had been my mother, or my sister, trying to send me some keepsakes of the past with which I might remember them, but I no sooner than glanced at the first photo than realised that that wasn't the case. There were two small pictures attached to each page, I noticed that the oldest ones at the front of the album were in black and white and were filled with people in period dress. Some of these were easily three hundred years old. I didn't see the significance of those – they were mostly taken of groups of people at a distance, the photos too old to really distinguish the faces in them. I flicked through the pages, not really being thorough enough, I supposed. The first one that caught my eye was one of three vampyres, men, standing on a podium like you do at the Olympics for Gold, Silver and Bronze, waiting to be presented with medals. The banner behind them read 'Vampyre Games 1833'. Standing proudly on the Gold platform of the podium, I swear to Nyx, was Oliver Pendragon.

Even if he had lied about his age, he couldn't have been that old, he had prepubescent brothers and sisters living! On closer inspection I noticed he was missing his beautiful dragon Mark, and the crescent moon on his forehead was an outline, not filled. He was a fledgling in this picture, but that wasn't the only difference. His hair was longer, and loosely tied back at the nape of his neck, the dark circles that normally lined his eyes weren't there, it gave a new life to his face, one that made him appear a decade younger, easily. He couldn't have been much older than me in this picture. This Oliver was fitter and stronger too, Oliver had long not had the time to train, or do any form of exercise other than what he did teaching in the Fencing Hall.

A huge, gaping blank ran through me – how could this be Oliver? It was too much of a likeness to be a coincidence. I had seen pictures of him in the house of when he was nineteen or twenty, and he had never had long hair like that. Oliver's was longish for a man, but not past his collar and definitely not long enough to be tied back, but I could so easily see it was him, it was his straight stance, his perfect English posture honed by a childhood of balancing books on his head, his rare but cheeky smile. I'd never seen him look happier, and strangely, it started to bring tears to my eyes. It almost hurt me to turn away from that page, and on to the next ones to follow. The next ones were of him as a Changed vampyre, and as my gaze wondered around the old photographs, it lingered, and then stopped dead on one picture.

It had been taken at a fencing event, from the looks of things, from across the field. There was Oliver again, brown eyes alight and intently watching the match in front of him, of which I could only see whirling foils and the back and right leg of one of the competitors. He was sitting in the front row, one leg crossed over the other, his arm snugly around – me?

_Me?_

I blinked and looked again. Sure enough, it was me in that picture. I had adult tattoos, was wearing a floor-length, low-cut dress of thin white fabric, my hair was loose and over my shoulders. We were leaning into each other, my left arm was around his waist, and my head was sitting sweetly in the crook of his neck. Even as I looked at it again, and again, and again, I swore I could feel the light ghostly touch of someone's arm around me. I shivered, and the touch was gone again. We looked like a couple in love and wanting to sing it to the world.

I turned the page, and then, just out of curiosity, turned it back again, to see if I was seeing things, to see if I was dreaming again or just plain tired. I was still there, in that photo beside him. As was I in all of the photos, always beside him. They slowly got more and more recent as they went through, like a timeline of somebody's life told in stills. There were some beautiful wedding pictures, again of him and me, me in a simple white wedding dress, him in a morning suit, holding each other at the church, the reception, the party. The flashes made my eyes water and suddenly I was there, wrapping my arms around him and holding on for dear life as we kissed to the sound of applause and cheering. What I felt in that kiss shook me to my core; it was ground-rocking, it stopped my breath and made my spirit flutter. I blinked and it was a picture again, but I could still hear the cheering and clapping in my ear. I went through all the photos as they moved into colour through the twentieth century, and into the twenty-first. At that point my brain overloaded – was this some kind of trick? It wouldn't be the first that one of the other fledglings had pulled one on me. All of these, no matter how authentic they looked, could be put together by the latest version of PaintShopPro. Closing the album and folding it up under my arm, something told me, exactly who I had to see.

I threw it down on the table in front of her, the impact of the leather with the wood creating a dust as it landed with a thud. Lenobia looked up at me from her laptop, the light making her seem paler than she was and tinging her skin an eerie blue. Her hair was tied back in an impeccable bun, without so much a hair out of place, made her look somewhat more foreboding.

"You sent this."

Her eyes fell on the leather bound book in front of her nose. "Did I now?"

"Who else could have?"

She picked it up with light fingers. "Where did you find it?"

"It was posted to me."

"My dear girl I would pay not postage to have it sent straight back here for the mere pretence of anonymity."

"Then who did? Hm?"

"I wish I knew." She said, closing her laptop and beckoning for me to sit, "But there are things that I do know. Things you ought to."

"What things?"

She linked her fingers and leant into the conversation. Wetting her lip, as if to choose her words carefully, she looked at me from a slightly sideways glance, the right side of her face slightly turned away, as if she was afraid that her face might give it away before she had. It was meant as an inquisitive gesture, I was sure, one that was trying to draw me out. Yianna had always been one of those powerfully intuitive vampyres you just knew you had to guard your secrets around, as was Lenobia. "What did Oliver tell you about me?"

"Not enough." I replied, "At any rate."

"Has he told you why he hasn't been sleeping for months?" My gaze hardened before I had time to temper it and she gave a tiny smug smile, "You knew that?"

"I thought he was an insomniac." I lied. I knew he had nightmares, and from the looks of it, she knew too.

"He was having a recurring nightmare." She explained, as if to clear the air, "It was a nightmare, of his last moments. For nights on end, he dreamt that he was committing suicide. Impaling himself with one of his swords."

"How do you know that?"

She didn't answer me. "Didn't you wonder why he recognised me? Or why I recognised you?" she asked, and I returned her reluctance to answer questions. "It was because..." she paused, "I was a witness to that event."

"A witness?"

"Oliver Pendragon did indeed kill himself." Panic rushed through me. I got up off my chair in the terrible thought that all of those nightmares were precursors to something much bigger, premonitions, and that under the stress of losing his sister he had tried to die. Lenobia simply continued her sentence, not breaking the eye contact with me. "But it was one hundred and forty-seven years ago."

In the deathly silence that followed, I fell back onto my chair, my knees not strong enough to keep me standing. "What?" I muttered.

"The man you know as Oliver is just the current incarnation of his soul." She continued, "Oliver has lived on this Earth before."

"You mean a past life?" I said, "That's what the nightmares are, visions of how he died in his past life?"

Lenobia nodded. "You were always a clever girl." She said. "That's what's been keeping him awake at night, but that's not what's been plaguing his every waking moment for the past four months." I widened my eyes at her as if to say 'go on', and so she did. "I knew him in that life." She said, "His name was Bryan Lankford."

Hairs stood up on the back of my neck as I remembered that dream I had had all those weeks ago. Lenobia saw me jump and pried.

"That seems to have rung a bell." She said, "It should, I'm glad." She paused before going on, "He was the Swordmaster at the Tulsa House, where I am still Horse Mistress to this day. We all called him Dragon, after his Mark, and his fierce fighting abilities. He was small in stature but by Christ, he made up for it. He had never once lost a duel or a match. We all became friends with him, he really was, one of the kindest people you'd care to meet." She said, "In the end, the only duel he ever lost, was the one against himself."

"What happened?" I naively asked, solidly listening to her tale like a child listens to a bedtime story.

"Dragon had a mate, a wife. Soulmates if I ever did see them. They were like this:" Lenobia made hooks out of her two index fingers and held them up interlinked so I could see, "She taught Spells and Rituals. They didn't meet at the school; they'd been married for years. They didn't talk about it very much, but I know that was because when they met, he was a fledgling, and she was a young teacher."

My eyes widened. "Oh."

"Yes. She was, I think just under three years older. That's another story. I'm sure Sociology have taught you about Kalona and Neferet."

"Of course." I said, remembering back to my Thirds lessons this year. "And that happened in Tulsa."

Lenobia nodded again. "His mate was murdered." She said, creating a new type of silence, "By a Raven Mocker, as they both fought to help Zoey and the others escape the school. It cut her throat. He wasn't close enough to help her, and she died in his arms."

"God..."

"After that, Dragon went completely off the rails. The loss stripped him of any rationality he had in him and he became blind to everything except revenge. So when Nyx forgave the Raven Mocker and wouldn't let him avenge her." She stopped to gather her breath, "Insanity set in. He literally couldn't live without her." She said, "So he committed suicide." My jaw dropped a little, "It wasn't fair."

"So, Oliver, is this Dragon reborn?" I said, "Being given another chance?"

"He knows." Her stare cut through me like a knife through butter, "And I think you already know." She said, "I think you've known deep down for a very long time." I was silent, and Lenobia leaned towards me even more, "Her name was Anastasia."

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

"Yianna my dear, you look like you need a drink."

I jumped out of my skin. I hadn't even heard anyone come in, I didn't know if it was because I was so engrossed in what I was doing, or if the explanation was a little less simple. I was still trying to sort out the programmes for the last few days of the Symposium, trying to arrange for speakers with other commitments to go earlier so they could fly off again, fitting in the later ones that couldn't arrive until 3pm on Friday and had to be gone again within three hours. Then all of those vampyres needed transport to and from the nearest airport, which was Hull. The drivers, the Sons of Erebus that were slightly less experienced – and slightly put out at the prospect of being someone's chauffeur – had to all be organised and be in the right place at the right time for drop-offs and pick-ups, the porters all had to be scheduled to work while still having their hours off, did the caterers have enough supplies? Enough staff? Did they have enough technical staff should the technology in the Crown Hall throw a hissy fit? Did we have enough blood and wine? Fledglings were fed cattle blood in their first couple of years, something they were rarely told, but human blood was in such short supply that it had to be saved for the older two years, for whom it would be essential to the normal course of the Change. Cattle blood was similar enough in composition, and in fact it was less likely to trigger a rejection to the Change, as that in itself was an immune response to foreign antigens. If they were not human, the chances of problems were considerably lower. This was why the House ran a farm, and had done since its conception in Medieval Times. Ellen ran a small dairy, of only around one hundred Friesian-Holsteins, and then another three-hundred beef animals, which consisted of her favourite breed. Herefords, naturally. But if any of those animals were culled and their blood tested clean, it was collected, and modified to remove any components which could trigger the sexual response cycle, and mixed with red wine. Due to such a risen demand for human blood this week, the older fledglings would have to make do with cattle blood. I really couldn't afford to piss off the NHS anymore, and to be honest I felt guilty asking any more of them. When I asked Ellen to slaughter another fifteen animals to meet the demand, she had looked at me as if I had a screw loose, and remarked that I had to be kidding her, with cattle prices at their lowest all year, and the animals not yet large enough for her liking to go, she scowled, rolled her eyes and stormed off, scuffing her steel-toe-capped boots against the stony and dust ground that served as the driveway in which I had parked my car. I remember I had slumped against the side of the car once I had retreated back behind the tinted windows and sighed, wondering why another person was going to take umbridges against me for doing my job.

All this seemed to weigh on me as I looked up from my laptop, removing the glasses I had worn as a human girl, still a habit that I reverted to when my eyes ached after a long day. When I saw who it was, I felt a mixture of worry and relief. To first look at, Thanatos, my predecessor here at Scarborough, was like a female version of the Grim Reaper, only with skin, and beauty. Only the accompaniment of a scythe would make her look more authentic as a symbol of Death. She looked marginally older than she ever had before, or maybe it was just a vibe she was giving off, I don't know, but she looked so confident that had that look been on anyone else's face I might have been worried. Or annoyed, one of the two. I could never be annoyed at Thanatos. I remembered very clearly the day it had been me standing there, a sixteen year-old Hindu girl from the depths of Birmingham. I had been fighting with bulimia at the time, and arrived in this very office, shivering underneath a lime-green sari from the violent thunderstorm that was raging outside. I remember so well the soft, dim candle-light reflecting of these very same wooden panels, how welcoming and warm they were after having walked to the doors – in those days the castle had no direct entrance for cars, you made the last half mile on foot. It was 24th November 2013, I was bulimic, hypothermic, and a shivering wreck. Thanatos had looked up at me, her dark eyes and hair not at all foreboding, but friendly.

That was the day my life changed.

She had ensured that I was warm, in a large soft bed with a cup of hot chocolate, and scolded my tracker for not having been more careful to keep me dry. She never pushed me to eat, only encouraged me to drink the wine they offered us, and slowly my body began to heal. I remembered all of them from then, stern Gwenhwyfar, sparky Catríona, quirky Spiridion – at the time, stoic Demeter, kind Aleron, and motherly Thanatos. After the first few weeks, I never wore a sari again. Even in adulthood, at work I dressed in black suits with a waistcoat and a pinstriped shirt, colour kept to a minimum in general. I even made an effort to erase my Brummy twang. I portrayed the image of a privately educated woman, not one that had grown up on a council estate in Selly Oak. There I was someone's rather insignificant dowry. Here, I was man's equal.

I happily allowed myself to slump in my seat, and beckoned for her to sit down. One thing about Thanatos that I had only just began to fathom: She had no fear. I twisted the pen I was holding around in my fingers, the plastic feeling sticky against my skin. It wasn't something I was used to seeing in people. There was no one alive who wasn't afraid of something. Even if they weren't afraid for themselves, they feared for others. Whilst Thanatos did fear for herself and others, it didn't go to astronomical heights like it did in other people. It was like she just accepted it that that was how life worked. Of course, all fears are tied into death. All our greatest phobias, all of them are connected by the eventuality of death, be it sooner or later, or for whatever reason. And Thanatos had no fear of death.

"That's what everyone says." I replied, blowing some strands of hair out of my face, "It's good to see you." I said fondly.

"First off," she said, her smile lighting up the room, "I wanted to say what a fantastic job you're doing here." I blew at those annoying strands of hair again. "It's not easy and you come under scrutiny for things that aren't your fault. It's like juggling knifes sometimes."

"To be expected." I said, putting my pen down on my desk as quietly as possible.

"Quite rightly so."

"How was your journey?"

"Pleasant. Those helicopters sure go fast." She laughed softly. "Ah I do remember all this so well." She said looking around, her voice like a bell, "You haven't changed a thing."

"I didn't want to." I said, "I like it as it is."

"If you say so." She said, "It is good to be back. So, how are you doing?"

Collapsing my head into my hands, I began to talk, a stream of words that would eventually become verbal diarrhoea, as I spilled everything to her, how simply by trying to do my best I was making people think I was a nasty bitch to be jeered at. How I didn't want it to bother me, how it didn't until I realised how closely I'd be living with these people, and then it was string enough almost to make me regret some perfectly plausible decisions I'd made, simply so I'd have a soul to talk to at the end of the day. Thanatos made herself comfortable, and listened.

* * *

_Lenobia_

* * *

It was only a couple of minutes after Anastasie had left my quarters that I realised she had left the photo album on my desk. It was a fairly miscellaneous item, one that could lie there for ages and you wouldn't notice if it was there or if it was not. I frowned. I definitely had not sent her this, and if it was what I thought it was, it bothered me that I did not know who had. Reaching out my hand, I slid it across the desk towards me, and began to flick through it. I recognised it immediately – Dragon had compiled this after Anastasia died, it was their story, in pictures. There were pictures from before they met, the year they met, which I knew was 1833, and then various places they'd been together. There were a lot of their wedding photographs in here, then more as they moved into colour, and towards the end, there were pictures of them at the Tulsa House, one collective picture of all the staff dated July 2009. And then, right at the end, there were just pictures of her. Pictures where he'd been holding the camera, taken at various famous ritual sites, all those things they'd done together, all the places they'd been. She was smiling, laughing, wrestling him for the camera. But these were just pictures of her; anyone would have thought that he had been the one to die first.

I had seen it very briefly once before, I remember. After she died I always checked on him in the mornings before bed, to make sure he hadn't done anything daft. Checking on Dragon regularly like you might a toddler was one of the awkwardest things I've ever had to do. The man who had been so noble, reduced to a quivering wreck, his eyes those of a madman. Most human doctors would have taken one look at him and sectioned him. But the first time I saw this photo album, I had knocked on the door, my cup of coffee in hand, I hadn't had time to change between then and coming in from morning stables, so I made sure to brush the bits of hay off of me outside before he let me in. I waited a few minutes, before deciding that I didn't have all day, and opening the door – we weren't brilliant at locking our suite doors, being that the entire professor's building had coded doors and coded trust – I stepped inside. I found him in his room, on his bed, pictures and possessions laid out around him. I saw him looking at it with streaming eyes and a torn soul – I almost felt rude intruding into his little circle of protection as I reached in to touch his shoulder. He flinched, and brushed my hand away as if I were a bluebottle that had landed on him. I remembered how his fingers had brushed over the plastic holding the pictures in place, like with that brush he could draw her out of the image, like he might have once drawn a blush from her cheek.

Twenty-four hours later, he was dead.

I sat there and wracked my brains for ages. Who in God's name had got hold of this? Most of Dragon's possessions had been sold or thrown away when he died, but when it had been myself and a couple of the other professors and warriors going through their things, there were things we had saved. Dragon did have a vague Will written down, his swords and blades were either sold or given to the recipients he stated in that Will, but this album? I think someone suggested at the time to burn it with his body, but I was present at his pyre, and it was not. So, who had got hold of it? And who would know to send it to Anastasie Parisien?

I had been quietly been doing my homework while here. Never had I thought this trip would turn out to be so productive as it has. And there I was so dreading it, dreading clearing the space from my hectic diary to go and chaperone a group of fledglings, because Zoey was busy. That I understand, but I am also busy, and these particular fledglings were testing both my tolerance and my patience. And these were our best of the best? Hm – life does not bode well for this lot. Once Zoey arrived however, I was free to fly back to Tulsa, but now I wasn't so sure if I would. I smiled to myself - life does throw you a bone occasionally. I loved the little, seemingly insignificant details of their current lives that were the echoes of their previous ones. For example, both are French speaking, he by education and she by descent. St Louis, the historic city where they met so many years ago, at the time, had been French territory and was largely francophonic, with the exception of the House of Night. How both of them had been tortured as Bryan and Anastasia by the fact they couldn't have children, and how Oliver and Anastasie had his family, and never wasted so much as a second. How they had had their qualms about each others' lives, but it didn't matter.

Anastasia once told me in confidence about Bryan's Oath. How it wasn't just the Oath of a warrior but also an Oath of peace. How he had fallen to his knees before her and pledged to temper his strength with mercy. To what must have been her awful distress, he had broken that pledge after she died, he had denied Nyx, and became the emblem of everything she stood against.

And yet, they still want each other.

At the time, her acceptance of his Oath had been conditional. Not even she denied that. But in my eyes, when I had met them in 2005, it was plain to see that there was nothing conditional about their relationship. They were so in love it wouldn't have mattered what one did to the other, no matter how many times he broke his Oath, no matter how many mistakes he made, it was completely and utterly unconditional. So unconditional, that they had found each other, one hundred and forty seven years later, once again as teacher and pupil, with everything at risk, and had still subconsciously put all that aside.

I smiled again, this time wider, and I looked up towards the ceiling as if to peer straight through and up to the sky above. Oh Anastasia, I thought to myself, there are no Terms and Conditions in this game.


	28. My Own

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

I've dreamt about this moment for a long time. I spent hours as a child, sitting underneath a den I'd made for myself out of duvets and bath towels, my nightlight, in the form of a smiley clown in a car, sitting beside me, I would fall asleep trying to imagine how my sister would find me again. In one version of events, I think she developed superpowers, and flew in with a pink cape strapped to her back, and lifted me away to a new life in her white castle over a rainbow. In another, probably later version, she was a popstar, with much too busy a schedule to be able to come and find me, but she cancelled a concert in Turkey to rescue me and take me back to her bachelorette pad in Los Angeles, with a swimming pool, sauna, record studio, and cinema. There I would become a rich and famous actress/singer and marry a gorgeous hunk.

That was a very long time ago.

That was before I simply gave up wishing.

And yet even in my more realistic fantasies of how I would meet Marie again as I got older, there was always something thrown in there that was not far short of a miracle. It was the only way it was ever going to happen. I didn't know if I understood or not. I didn't know if I could understand why the sister (albeit step-sister) that had loved me as a child had left grown up, left home, and forgotten all about me. Would I have done the same thing, if I had been her? I definitely would have got out if I could, escaped from a stifled upbringing, by a mother who wasn't entirely all there in the head.

Still, I had my doubts. I knew all about adopted children that had gone on to try and find their birth parents, in the hope of a teary reunion, and instead being sorely disappointed, the people who had not wanted to know them at the time of their birth had no more inclination to get to know them now than fly to the Moon. And strangely, I didn't entirely feel sorry for those children. After all, they did go looking, and they didn't see that they might be looking for trouble.

I was sitting at a window table of a little café called La Roulette, a traditional French-style place with little tables and rich red umbrellas just outside. It was a nice day, and had it been any other day, I'd have had half a mind to sit outside and enjoy the breeze, but today all I wanted to do was shrink into the corner and become a part of the furniture. I looked at every passing person, trying to decide whether or not it was her, every young woman that passed. Was she still blonde? Was she still taller than me? Had she put on weight?

Wondering whether or not I was obsessing over this, I tapped my teaspoon against the side of my espresso cup impatiently – she was fifteen minutes late.

Truth be told, it was the only thing that was keeping my mind off what Lenobia had said.

It couldn't be. It just couldn't. I was still a fledgling, and as of yet I was still wary of religion, and I wasn't sure if I was able to take a leap of faith over that broad chasm. And yet, something in me wanted to take that leap, and trust my gut. It made so many things make sense. Why we knew what the consequences were, but we ended up in bed anyway, why I didn't remember it, because it wasn't fully me. Why that red nurse back in the hospital said we were imprinted. Had we been imprinted all along, from before we even met?

I had only been looking for Marie recently, and even then, it had been Oliver that had had her found for me. I cringed inwardly, for the millionth time that day. I could say, with a ninety-nine point nine percent certainty that I had imprinted with him that night. I didn't know what was normal for an Imprint and what wasn't, only that it varied among vampyres, but I suddenly found myself unable to stop thinking about him. As I sat and gazed out of the window of this little café, if I saw a car the same model as his, I would check both the plate and the driver to see if it was him. I dreamt up having conversations with him just so I could have the feeling of having interacted with him. I dreamt of him while I was asleep, I craved him personally and, I cringed (one million and one), sexually. The more I thought about that night the less I knew, but the more my brain seemed to be making up for me. I didn't know if they were fantasies or recovering memories, however much I knew it was wrong, it just didn't stop me doing it, and they were there regardless, coming to the surface in the form of the redness across my cheeks.

I had half a mind to tip the waitress, grab my coat and leave – I doubted she was really coming. Just as I was about to do so, the little bell attached to the red painted door chimed, and a young blonde woman of medium height in a cobalt blue cardigan and jeans walked in, immediately scanning the area in front of her. Her eyes were a greyish green as opposed to my blue ones, and she was a few inches taller, her hair was of an ashier one, but once again the resemblance struck me like a sledgehammer. She didn't see me, as I was sitting in the corner behind the door, and so she strode forwards towards the counter to order something.

Somewhere behind the sound of whirring coffee machines, clinking plates and orders being taken, I froze. It was her. It was my sister.

I called out to her, and instead of a strong, gleeful call, it was a weak, strangled, croaky sound that I had to force out of my throat. "Marie?" I said. It was so quiet that I wondered if maybe she hadn't heard me.

Suddenly, Marie stopped, stood a little straighter, and then turned around. The look on her face was beautiful – a picture of long loss.

"Annie?" she said, her voice soft and wavering, her lip quivering, "Is that you?"

I bit my lip and curbed the tears. I hadn't intended for this to be a tearful reunion. Marie hadn't contacted me in all the years since she left. She hadn't exactly tried to find me, and I was determined that I wasn't going to leap all over her and hug her tightly and forgive her for it, just like that. I was going to be calm and collected, I had decided this morning. I should have known that it wouldn't have panned out like that. For the first time in my life, I was aware of how truly I needed my sister.

Sliding out from behind the table, I covered the ground between us in a few strides, and threw my arms around her. Holding me tight, she blissfully ignored the tears that stained her shoulder, and led me back to the table, delving into her bag to offer me a tissue. She held my face in her hands and marvelled at how much I'd grown.

"Oh Annie!" she said, her smile beaming through, "You're so beautiful, look at you, you're all grown up!"

"Why didn't you write to me?" I asked her outright, stapling that lip down and forcing myself to say it before I bottled out again, "Why didn't you call me?" I sniffed and wiped my eyes and nose again, "Why did you just leave me there?"

Marie shrank back into her seat. "I did write to you." She said quietly, "I wrote to you every week for a year." She noted what must have been a very blank look on my face, "But I always doubted you got them."

God damn my mother. Suddenly her mad rush to the post every morning before I could get to it all made sense to me. "Oh God..." I said, "Marie I'm so sorry..."

"Don't be!" she said, "Hey, it's alright!" she grinned as she put her hand on my shoulder. Glancing down at my empty coffee cup, she slung her bag over her shoulder, "Now." She said, "You look like you need a top-up. What would you like?"

I opted for another espresso, and Marie had a cappuccino. Placing a new drink in front of me, and settling herself into the seat beside me.

"Oliver said you were married." I said, trying to start a conversation.

Marie nodded as she sipped her coffee. "His name's Philip Sewell." She said, "I met him at the office, and the rest as they say, is history." She said, "He's here with me, we're checked into a B&B – do you have any idea how hard it is to find a room here during the tourist season? Anyway, he'd love to meet you."

"I'd love to meet him." I said, a smile creeping up on me.

"So who's this Oliver chap?" she asked, "That's not the detective who contacted me."

I slowly shook my head and quivered again. "Marie..." I began, "Help me..."

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

I first picked up a foil when I was seven years old.

And now I look back on it, the more I recall it, the more I think it strange.

When I was about five, I had every kind of toy sword possible. I had pirate swords, light sabre things, everything. And yet I wasn't interested in playing pirates or Star Wars, the only thing I ever wanted to do with those swords was fight. Of course my parents kept very close tabs on me because they didn't want me to grow up thinking that violence was okay, but I still remembered the feel of the plastic handle in my clammy hand, and waiting for the day when I would hold one of these for real. It was this odd fascination, borderline obsession that made my father think of starting me on fencing lessons two years later.

And I remember something I said to him – two things actually. Well before I started lessons, I think I was, four. I knew I wasn't able to read or write at the time, something my father would remind me of when he recalled it himself. I had tiptoed downstairs after bedtime to get myself a drink, and peeking into the living room, I saw my parents snuggled on the sofa, watching the first Pirates of the Caribbean film. It was the bit where Jack Sparrow meets Will Turner and a big impressive sword fight occurs. Of course, they knew I was there immediately, my eyes glued to the screen from behind the door. Instead of sending me straight back to bed, my father called me to him, and sat me on his knee and let me watch.

"So Oliver..." he said to me, "That kind of sword is called a rapier."

And here's the note of the story. Apparently, at this comment, I had rolled my eyes, sighed loudly, and said, "Dad!" in a disappointed tone of voice, "That's a Renaissance Side Sword."

I kid you not, that was what I said. My father looked at me in disbelief – he wouldn't have known the difference of course, but neither should I. At the time I had only ever been exposed to one type of sword: the plastic variety. My father had laughed it off, accused me of watching too much television, and sent me back to bed. I would say, if you asked me now, that this was my earliest memory. And as I moved into the world of real fencing, it was something that he would tease me about from time to time. I remembered that evening, and not knowing what all the fuss was about when he sent me back to bed. To me, it had seemed like the most obvious thing in the world. And then as I got older I attributed it to maybe having watched some TV show or film, I never gave it a second thought.

And then, as I was hurling these plastic toys around, barely old enough to go to school, I would make up this game. I didn't remember the rules of it anymore, but again, my father would ask me what I was doing, and I would answer; "I'm protecting my own Dad!" It didn't matter who asked me, my response would always be "I'm protecting my own!". It was weird at the time, granted, but four year-olds do do weird things, say weird things, sometimes not understanding the meaning of what they're saying. My parents used to remind me of it all the time, and apparently I had stopped saying it by the time I was eight.

That was twenty years ago now. Yet I remembered it very distinctly, I just didn't remember the sense behind it. Who needs sense when you're eight? I only remember this, pulled it somewhere from the back of my head, because I had been reading recently, about reincarnation.

A sceptical person I was, but not a closed off one. As I thought back to the ghosts at the House of Night, the little girl the smelled of smoke who sang 'Scarborough Fair', and the many others, I knew I could feel them more than the other vampyres. I knew my vampyre intuition was more powerful than that of the other vampyres, with maybe the exception of Yianna. I remembered looking at the isolation room door, four months ago, where I would speak to Anastasie Parisien for the first time, and I knew there was something else behind that door. Thanatos had said, that my spirit was old, that it had been on this Earth before. Was this what she meant?

I had gathered some dusty old books from the school's library in the hope of finding something that would disprove all this. I knew from my studies as a fledgling that reincarnation wasn't part of Nyx's doctrine. Vampyres believed in the Otherworld, our Heaven, there wasn't generally a belief held that we came back as someone else.

As I poured over my books, and the internet, I read that reincarnation, whilst not a rule for all, it was theorised, was granted by Nyx usually to give a spirit closure. A way of Nyx ensuring we lived a fulfilling life before we entered the Otherworld. The internet told me that memories, or echoes from past lives tended to occur between the ages of five and seven, because that was the age we became coherent enough to understand those memories, but we didn't have the layering of our current lives on top of them. This is what had brought me back to those strange incidents in my childhood. 'My own', seemed to drip off the end of my tongue like it wasn't meant for me, but for someone else.

I tried very hard, to remember anything, anything at all from who I might have been before, and I had nothing. Other than a violent dream and familiar words, and feelings. I didn't remember loving, but I did, very clearly remember the pain of losing her. The blonde vampyre from Tulsa said Anastasia Lankford had been murdered, 'there is only one thing your soul would come back to this world for', she has said. Was this Nyx's slightly twisted way of giving us another chance?

Simultaneously, I also remembered the promise I had made to myself before, that I would not jeopardise the welfare of my family, not at any cost. I didn't even want to contemplate what I felt for her.

Later that day, I called her into my office at school. I still wasn't working, I wasn't due to restart work until September now, but they hadn't broken up for the summer yet, and I didn't want to have to invite her out here again. Truthfully, I had found her sister for her, as a desperate measure to put distance between us. Marie could have her in the holidays now, she would be miles away from me, at the other end of the country. And now it was working against me - I knew that if I didn't tell her soon, she would go the entire summer without knowing.

The moment she closed the door behind her, her face was solemn and distinctly worried, like she feared for being caught with me. For all that it was twenty-five degrees outside, still she wrapped her arms around herself like she was cold, her lips pressed together in a fine line.

"We can't keep doing this Oliver." She said, declining a seat when I offered her one. I sat at my desk, my legs crossed at the ankles, the large piece of heavy wood between me and her.

"I need to tell you something." I said, burying my head in my hands, "And it's not pretty, and it's not rational and it doesn't make sense."

She shifted her weight from foot to foot, her eyes bright, blue and curious. "Okay."

I didn't know where to start. "You and I..." I began, "I know this sounds insane..." an elegant eyebrow rose at my complete and utter blundering, "I think... There's quite a lot of evidence that... Oh God..."

"Go on..." she said.

"We were, together, in our past lives." She looked at me, her expression completely unreadable, "I know it's crazy I know but just..."

"It's not." She said, interrupting me and cutting me off. Her gaze was fixated on something behind me, giving her the appearance of a woman in a trance.

"What?" I murmured.

She tightened her lips and sighed. "I know Oliver." She said, "I know about all of it."

"You, do?"

"Bryan and Anastasia Lankford?" She said, somewhat like it was a joke that she didn't really want to believe, "That's us right?" she shrugged into thin air, "Somebody sent me a photo album..." she said, "There were so many pictures, of you and me, in black and white, there are wedding photos and everything..." her face was almost fond as she spoke, her eyes becoming glassy. "And, Lenobia told me." I could only stare as she took slow steps towards my desk, "Is that what your nightmares were?" she asked me, almost reading my mind, "You were remembering weren't you?"

I caught my breath in a whirlwind of childish fascination. "Did you have dreams too?" I asked her.

"One." She replied, "I think I was meeting you for the first time." She smiled, "It was, surreal, even for her."

"Do you remember anything?" I asked her suddenly, the questions popping up in my head so quickly that I couldn't keep track of them, "Do you remember being her?"

She shook her head. "Do you?" Relieved, I shook mine in reply. Sighing, she finally sat down opposite me, "It makes sense now..." she said, more to herself than to me as she cupped her hands in her lap.

"What does?"

"About a month ago," she began, "Lucy came to me after we were in the hospital with Ellie. You know she's seeing that nurse who looked after her."

"Yes?"

"Do you remember the red vamp who also looked after her? Rie?" I nodded, "Apparently she told Kenneth -that's his name – that she could sense an Imprint between us."

I blinked. "Really? How?"

I didn't make it public, but I had never been able to imprint with anyone, and it wasn't for lack of trying, when I was younger anyway. People couldn't seem to imprint onto me, and vice versa. Anastasie didn't know this, but I had a feeling I knew what she was about to say.

"Because we've been imprinted all along." She said simply, "When we..." she rolled her hand around in the air to try and get the words out, "died, I don't think it did." She said, "And of course," the hand rolled again, "we are anyway now."

I wrinkled my nose. "We are?"

Her cheeks glowed pink. "After, you know..."

"You know...?"

She looked at me blankly for a moment, and then closed her eyes, as if the answer had been in front of her the whole time. "Ah." She said, "You don't remember."

Now I was starting to worry. "Remember what?"

"I, um..." she scratched the back of her neck, "I woke up, in your bed, on Thursday."

My jaw dropped, as did my stomach. "What?"

"When I left it was about five o' clock, I, I didn't remember doing it!"

Fear pulsed through me. "Are you sure we..."

She nodded. "It was a complete blank!" she said, "But since then I keep getting these, glimpses."

It was my turn to close my eyes, as I tried to pretend this was all a bad dream. Oh God what had I done? I'd had sex with a fledgling! But I didn't even remember doing it! How could I not remember doing it?

"Anastasie..." I began, oh Christ I couldn't even look at her now, "I am so, so, terribly sorry."

"Don't be." She said, "Don't be sorry!"

"For God's sake stop trying to make out like this is alright!" I shouted, causing her to jump out of her skin where she sat. "This is _not _alright Anastasie!"

Tears fell from my eyes and hit the mahogany surface of my desk as I lowered my head down and wrapped my arms around it as if to drown out a noise. Oh Nyx I had never wanted to be so torn! I needed to be away from her, for the sake of my family and my job, and yet I wanted to be with her more than I had ever wanted anything. She walked around the back of my desk, tears beginning to brim at her eyes as well, she knelt to the side of where I sat, her hands in her lap as if she were praying, "_I'm so sorry Oliver_..." She said, the tears falling "_I'm so sorry I've got you into this mess! It was my fault as much as it was yours and I knew as well as you do that it wasn't right, and I don't want you to lose your job or your family because of me_..."

My heart wrenched. "Don't you dare." I told her, "Don't you fucking dare!"

Turning in my seat to face her, I fell to my knees so I was level with her. She sobbed, and when she looked up at me as if to beg me for forgiveness, it irked me that she was hurting because of me. I reached out and stroked her face with my hand, wiping her tears away and brushing her hair out of her eyes. I pressed my forehead to hers and closed my eyes, breathing hard as I struggled with the emotion she made me feel. Her breath was sweet and warm on my cheek. It all happened in a second – one second of me touching her, things were suddenly flashing in front of my blurred vision - I remembered kissing her, and Adrian catching us. Then I remembered being unable to control myself as we writhed into the night. I saw myself rescuing – and I maintain to this day rescuing, not aggravating – Anastasia from the bear. My dear, beautiful Anastasia, my priestess, my love, my own, chiding me for ruining her spellwork. I saw myself sneaking around to leave a fresh sunflower in the vase on her desk every day, falling to my knees to give her my oath, and again, sometime later to propose to her. I saw myself kissing her, and in that moment I felt an immense pleasure, not unlike orgasm, but one that made me completely speechless. Then the images changed. I saw her lying in my arms, her blood pouring all over me and her, the gash in her throat so deep I could see the cartilage rings of her trachea. She was choking silently, trying to say my name but unable to, her terrified eyes begging me not to leave her.

The light in them went out, and she fell still...

And I felt pain.

Pure raw pain that stopping my breathing, it felt like I had been cut open and had every one of my essential organs ripped out. _Oh God... No... No..._ I gasped as it took hold of me, it was like being stabbed all over with white-hot knifes that twisted in my flesh. I pressed our blood-soaked bodies together, begging, praying desperately to Nyx that I could transfer my life to her. Tears streamed from my eyes as sobs shook my body, and I looked up. I was in my office again, I glanced down – she wasn't in my arms anymore, her blood wasn't there, despite the fact I could feel its stain on my hands. There she was, before me, beneath my fingertips once again.

"_Oh my own..."_ I whispered, my eyes searched hers and I heard and felt her breath catch as I said it, exhilarating me to new levels, "_My Anastasia..._"

She whimpered and craned into my touch. "_Bryan?_" she whispered, "_You came for me... You came..."_

I leant forward suddenly and kissed her hard, taking her and I by surprise. Her lips were soft, smooth and warm against mine. Her gentle breath on my face was sweet and pleasant, soothing the stinging tears away. I couldn't control the euphoria that shot through me and exploded like a firework, and I succumbed to it before I could even put up a fight, but kissing her felt natural, my body relaxed and drove my worries away. I could definitely feel that Imprint now, it was like a magnetising force between us, it made me feel like a fate worse than death awaited me if I gave her anything less than all of me. And at the same time, it was the most wonderful feeling in the world. All I could hear in my head was my own voice repeating over and over again _'I love you', 'I love you'_...

Finally, breaking the silence, she spoke. "I'm going back with Marie." She whispered to me, her cheeks still wet, "I'm going to Devon, I'm transferring to London..."

"London?"

"I can start over Oliver." She said, still lost for breath, "I can have a clean slate, I can get away from the taunts and the jibes. I can have friends, I can leave all this behind!"

"When do you go?"

"Next week."

It only made me hold her tighter. She didn't say any more – she didn't have to. I didn't know how long we sat there, it felt like years, I just couldn't bear to let her out of my arms. I sobbed with her – I had brought her here to try to find closure today, and now, I had no idea how I was ever going to let her go again.


	29. Throwing the Book

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

_Ask her to do me this courtesy,_

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,_

_And ask for a like favour from me,_

_And then she'll be a true love of mine._

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

Fears are complex things.

They can come in all shapes and sizes, have all sorts of parameters, each and every one as different as the person they entomb. I've often heard it said that the one thing that unites humans and vampyres alike, is fear. Fear is universal, felt by all, for whatever purpose. As the saying goes, there are no non-believers on a sinking ship.

I looked in the mirror for what must have been the seventh time the morning. It was quite difficult not to in a way, as it adorned the wall opposite my desk, just to the left of where the door was. The fledglings had a little story going, that if they had been in my office, for whatever detention or scolding, they would always see themselves in the mirror as they left, and every single one would see the impact I had had on them within that reflection.

I of course thought this was banal. How foolish of them to think that each time they would look in a mirror, they would see the same thing?

Our reflection is precisely that, and I challenge any person, human or vampyre, to look in a mirror and tell me they like what they see. Our reflections are the worst of what we see in ourselves, purely because they give us an opportunity to see it. Without them, none of us would ever take a backwards glance at ourselves. And I, like mirrors, had a knack for bringing out the worst in people.

Now Narcissus repeatedly looked at himself in the mirror because he was vain. Whilst I was not vain, not physically anyway, I could help but wonder what the fledglings saw over the shoulder of their reflections when they left this room. Me? Or a monster? Demonising those that haul you up on your misgivings is common enough, it helps you deal with it, and I doubted that those unruly teenagers realised that I demonised them as much as they demonised me.

I stared at my Mark for the eighth time, almost like I was expecting it to be different this time. I returned my gaze to the end of year reports I was commenting on and signing off. It was two snakes, curled around my forehead and temples, their wide outstretched fangs bared at the crescent moon in the centre. Snakes are creatures allied to Nyx, symbolic of female power.

But they are also symbolic of fear.

Statistically, more people suffer from Ophidiophobia – fear of snakes – than any other phobia in the world. And people were afraid of me, I knew that, I saw why, but what I didn't understand was the irrationality of it. When people looked at me, all they saw was the snakes.

I also knew my affinity wasn't normal – it didn't have the impersonality of the elements, nor the beauty of an art. And not in the one-hundred and sixty years Id been knocking around now, I'd never met another vampyre with the same affinity as me. Mine, involved ethics. Some psionospheres were better left unopened, like the proverbial can of worms. Fears were private things, and other people knowing them, well, it can save you, or it can destroy you.

I bit my lip and continued signing off the reports – this was hard. I didn't know these kids well enough yet to be commenting on their progress over the year. I had a rather pressing hunch that a lot of the parents didn't so much as read these as throw them on the fire anyway. Every single page was dated in the handwriting of the member of staff that had written it, 6th July, 2157. I sighed. Happy Birthday me.

There was a knock at the door. "Come in." I said. The latch clicked, the heavy oak shifted, and the clock chimed nine am. Saphina's heels clacked on the uneven floorboards.

"Sorry to bother." She said, her voice apologetic, "But there's a Marie Sewell at Reception asking to see you – Anastasie Parisien's sister. She doesn't have an appointment."

I threw my pen down on the desk in relief. Finally, an excuse not to do reports. "Send her in." I said, clearing my desk of rubble and throwing the wrapper of a KitKat Chunky I'd eaten earlier into the bin down by my feet. Saphina held the door open for the woman, and then closed it behind her. To struck me how much Anastasie resembled her, even though, as I understood it, they weren't actually related. Her hair was darker, her eyes greener, and this woman was older. I studied the small but sure lines around her eyes and the edges of her mouth, and I wondered how I could be over five times older than this woman, and still appear younger. I had read Marie Sewell's details before; Oliver had faxed them to me after his detective came up with a result, it was recalling them that I was finding challenging.

I greeted her with a pleasant smile and a handshake. "It's nice to meet you Mrs. Sewell, please have a seat."

"Thank you." She said, "I'm sorry I know meetings are by appointment but I had no contact details for you."

"That's quite alright." I answered, "So, how can I help you?"

"I'd like to be registered by the school as Anastasie's next of kin." She said, "Being eighteen she doesn't require a legal guardian, however she is still my dependent."

"Absolutely." I said, "Saphina can sort that out for you at Reception."

"Yes..." she said, her eyes edging sideways for a moment. "I'm afraid, I'd also like to request a transfer to the London House of Night."

I raised my eyebrows in unison. "Is that really necessary?"

She avoided eye contact with me, instead choosing to look anywhere around the room except at me. She was anxious about something, I could feel it.

"It's not the school, your – facilities, are excellent, however my husband and I live in Devon and we would prefer to have her nearer to home."

"I'm afraid I cannot permit a transfer without Anastasie's consent." I told her.

She laughed and put her hand over her heart. "Oh God yes, Lord I would never make her transfer if she didn't want to. I understand she's had some, issues, with bullying during her time here and she'd like a fresh start."

Her eyes blazed into mine as she said the word 'bullying', and I felt guilty inside. How could Thanatos not have known, not have interceded? There were so many things that I didn't understand about that girl, this not the least. I had no intention of whittling the blame off of myself, and I might even have felt guiltier, had it not been for this horrible, gut feeling that she wasn't being entirely truthful.

I could read people like a book. Humans in their entirety, and most vampyres. My intuition had always been my friend; it told me when people were lying. It's that sensation you get in your stomach when you're lying yourself, you feel it, it casts a shadow over someone like your eyes and ears might detect a shady personality. My initial thoughts were that this woman was just like their mother, and about as nurturing, but that idea struck the wrong note. The logistics of getting Anastasie to school every term were a fair enough reason to choose London instead of Scarborough, so why was this woman, worried about something?

There will always be those psionospheres that I will regret drawing. Sometimes there are those psionospheres that draw me as opposed to me drawing them. This one was barely one at all, a tiny, slip of one. There were no visions in black and white, no chill, all this was, was a fleeting muttering, in her own voice, like a thought that should have bounced off the inside of her skull yet had somehow managed to escape and finish her sentence for her, so quietly I could barely hear it.

"_I'm worried about her... She's convinced she's in love with her teacher..."_

I blinked sharply, immediately snapping myself out of the psionosphere and back into reality. Daytime hallucinations danced in front of my vision and I wiped at my eyes.

"Are you alright?" she asked me, and suddenly I realised how out-of-character my behaviour was, and, just how very hurt, and angry I was.

"Fine." I said, "I'll have Saphina send you the relevant paperwork. If you'll excuse me I'm running to a tight schedule."

"Oh, absolutely." She said, gathering her bag and getting to her feet, "It's been a pleasure to meet you, Yianna."

"Likewise." I said, staring at her retreating back as she left.

Likewise.

* * *

_Lucy_

* * *

Arsehole.

I stapled a bloodwork sheet to its request form so hard I was surprised I didn't send the staple into the desktop beneath it. Fuck him. Fuck him and all his little teenage human girlfriends.

Shit I was crying again. And there was me thinking that I'd run out of tears. Why did men do this? So he can't grow old with me, so he wants someone he can have kids with, sure! So why did you get with me in the first place you tea-spoon-sucking cheese-board-licking arse-munching twankhole!

Oh God I missed him. I really, genuinely missed him. He was so perfect, and I let him slip through my fingers. Stupid prick!

"Lucy."

I sniffed, wiped my eyes on my arm, trying not to look at the trail of mascara I left there. Dr. Cilian stood behind the infirmary reception desk, pulling off a labcoat that had blood splatters on it. He removed his ID and everything from the pockets, before dumping it into the washing basket. "Could you wash this for me ASAP?"

"Sure." I said, wiping my cheeks clear of tears. I didn't want him to know that I had been crying, but who was I kidding? I might as well have been wearing Christmas lights and dancing the Macarena. Not a chance of being anonymous.

"Oh, and Yianna just paged me, says she wants a contact for that red nurse that was looking after Pendragon's sister. Think your chap would know?"

I scowled through red eyes. "How should I know? I don't speak to the fuckwit."

Dr. Cilian pulled another clean labcoat over his shoulders and began to replace his badge, the whole while his eyes settled on me like a condescending vulture. "Fair enough."

I wouldn't be calling Kenneth. I didn't even want to ring that hospital again or so much as set foot through the automatic door, because I might have to see him, or speak to him. I wouldn't even be wondering why in the Hell of it Yianna would want that red vamp's contact details. If she wanted them, she could go and find another bloody nurse. Better yet, she could do it herself.

I broke into tears again. Good one Lucy. Full marks from the Idiot School, founded by Idioty McIdiot.

I was distracted from my train of idiotic thought by a box of tissues being thrust in my face. Grabbing a whole handful and resting on the desk beside me, I wiped my eyes and nose in one.

"Thank you." I said.

Dr. Cilian returned the box to on top of the filing cabinet where it belonged, and tucked his hands under his arms.

"Go home Lucy." He said, "I need nurses that aren't emotional wrecks."

For a moment, he looked like he was going to say something else, but couldn't choose the words. Instead, he shoved his various pens back into his breast pocket, and wandered off back onto the ward. I didn't need a second invitation, and silently, I thanked him a hundred times over.

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

I knew Oliver was here, I had seen his car in the car park every morning this week, thanks only to the torrential July rain – well this is England, better yet the north-east coastline – I doubted he'd been walking in. I thought it was odd that he was here when he didn't have to be, and then it had clicked in my head – he'd come to see her.

I'd felt betrayed before, I'd been betrayed before, but never had I failed to understand like I did with Oliver Pendragon. I genuinely trusted Oliver. I genuinely didn't believe that he was capable of shagging a girl in his care. He wasn't that sort of person. I remembered back to when Oliver first requested that she be allowed to stay with him over Easter, how I had been reluctant to allow it, her being vulnerable and he being young and attractive. And I'd been right. Setting my jaw and clenching my fist as I walked, I realised what I'd let happen. I told myself to calm down. Take it easy before you bite his head off. What people feel is irrelevant. You can't prosecute someone for feeling that they wanted to punch someone. It was what they did that counted.

Fumbling around with my set of keys as I went, I located the one I needed. I had a masterkey to all the staff offices on site, as well as one for all the student rooms, classrooms, staff accommodation, the broom cupboard on the third floor. You name it, I had a key for it. Reaching Oliver's office door, I jammed the key into the lock and turned, only to realise that it was already unlocked. Pressing down on the brass handle, I pushed the door open, to find Oliver bent over his desk, pen in hand, paperwork spread out. His face was annoyed, that someone had barged into his office without knocking, and then he saw it was me. And it was more than just his paperwork on the table.

"Yianna." He said, his eyes petrified to the core. In that horrible silence before I answered, all I had to do was look into their reflections to know everything. He was rigid, so paralysed by fear that he projected it onto me like a nineteenth century overhead projector. I saw them, curled up in each other's arms behind his desk, right there, whispering sweet nothings to each other, and at the exact same time, layered over like a special effect in a film, I saw them again, dressed as per the early nineteenth century, she fully Marked, smiling fondly as he knelt before her, his hair longer, his smile cheekier, his hand over his heart, his head bowed, a sword at his side. Then it layered over again. I saw Oliver's brothers and sister split up and sent into separate foster homes, eventually forgetting about him, his home sold, Anastasie expelled. I saw him sitting on top of the keep, like she had done, staring out into the rough sea, wondering if it would be better to jump.

My head began to ache – that was another thing about psionospheres, they told you more than just what you saw. When I'm in one I relay purely what I see and hear, but when I come out of them, it's like having another load of information implanted in my brain that I haven't bothered to read over yet.

I blinked, and there was nothing in the space between us. Just thin air, guilt, and silence. I pushed the key into the lock again and twisted it locked.

"You have no idea..." I began, folding my arms across my chest, "In how much shit you are."

I expected Oliver to fight me. Underneath his parental and teacherly demeanour, weighed down by responsibility, he was a feisty little piece of work. I expected him to deny it, I expected him to fly at me with guns and fireworks blazing. I at least expected him to defend himself and his reputation. Instead, he flopped under my stare, he gave in without a fight, without so much as a word. His shoulders drooped and he pinched his eyes shut, like he could pretend this wasn't happening. I seethed under my breath. What did he expect?

"Do you have any last words?" I asked him, crossing the room and placing my hands on the edge of his desk, leaning over him and glaring down as he shrunk away from me. I wasn't angry, I was absolutely fuming, "_Any at all_?" Not speaking, hopefully for shame, he shook his head. I continued, the disgust dripping from my tongue as I looked down on him, I wanted to make him feel lower than dirt. Just like the filth he was. "No I didn't think so."

"I'm sorry." He began, nursing his head in his hand, looking up at me from beneath the shadow it cast over his face like a dead man begging for his soul.

"Sorry?" I shouted, "_Sorry?_" he flinched and immediately shut his eyes again like a big dog had barked in his ear as the words rained down on his shoulders, "Do you have any idea what you've done? Hm?" I toned my voice down, but by the time I had got the words out I was screaming again, "Even human schools have rules against this, be their students eighteen or as good as! _Fledglings are not legally considered adults until they Change, be that at eighteen or at twenty-one_!"

"I know that!" he retaliated.

"You were responsible for her in a time of vulnerability!" I hissed at him, "You were in _loco parentis _Oliver and what do you do? _Climb into her knickers like there's no time to waste_?"

It was my turn to sigh deeply into the silence that followed. Vampyres didn't really have any written laws against pupil-teacher relationships, but there were plenty of unwritten ones, and there were definitely written laws with emphasis on teachers acting in loco parentis, being parental figures. Parental figures did not have sex with their charges. However, vampyres, given the nature of their nutrition and the fact that ninety percent of fledglings were Marked aged sixteen anyway, had no rules regarding age of consent either. He could definitely be charged with breach of confidence in a court, but any penalty would be severely lessened if Anastasie declared she had been an independent and willing participant and that he had not breached her confidence. So that was why she had been so uplifted lately, I pondered, why she had been eating and turning up to lessons, and actually talking to other people.

"Let me explain..."

My eyes widened with anger and I was sure that I must be snarling. "No!" I said, "No Oliver, you can't explain! Because there is no plausible explanation for things like this!"

"I don't understand..." he began, but I cut him off before he could finish. I didn't want to hear that kind of dribbling rubbish.

"You don't understand?" I rolled my eyes. "Then God help you Oliver!" I yelled, "God help you, because Nyx certainly won't!"

He flinched as if I had physically struck him. I took a very deep breath to attempt to cool my temper. The effect was minimal, "_If you can't keep it in your trousers then you should_ not_ be working with children, I am sorry_." I said, "You're fired. Pack your things. I want you off campus in half an hour do you hear me?"

At that moment, the key that I had placed in the lock dropped to the carpet with a soft thud, and on the other side of the door, another key slotted in, turned, and the door opened. That's odd, I thought, who would have another key to this door...?

It opened, and standing there, with a copy of the key that was once the key to his office door, stood Spiridion. He gave his best boyish, irritating grin, held the key up in his fingers, and said; "You never did recall the spare."

* * *

_Spiridion_

* * *

Ah, what a lovely awkward moment this is. Yianna is glaring daggers at me, as if looks could kill, and Oliver is currently quivering in his chair bordering on tears while she prepares to roast him alive on a spit and hack into him with a chainsaw. Suddenly I was reminded of doner kebab...

Still grinning – I know it annoys her – I waltzed into the room that was once my office. "Ah the hellish years I spent in here..."

Yianna's face, is possible, turned even sourer. "What do you think you're doing?" she seethed at me.

"Oh me? I was just dropping by really." I answered, "Came to see how you're all doing."

"Get out." She snarled.

"Now easy Yianna, oh and try to leave my limbs intact." I said, juggling my weight from one foot to the other in an attempt to stay upbeat. Who was I kidding? Seriously. "You're forgetting something very important."

Her attention finally off poor Oliver, she turned against me. "Pray, what?"

Prey. Ha.

"Remember the court case?" I asked her, my own voice rising. Good, I was almost as loud as she was. "Remember that hateful woman? Remember those children that weren't being fed properly?"

"What are you going on about?" she said, folding her arms again and standing up to me.

I went on, I was shouting now, staring her down all the way. "_Remember that innocent man the law sent down_?"

"I think you've said enough."

I felt a breeze on the back of my neck, and I realised that I had been so engaged in the argument that I hadn't even noticed that Oliver had left the room. My eyes followed him briefly in apology, and immediately I felt a little worse. Softening like a knob of butter, I frowned at her still.

"That's where the book will take you Yianna." I told her, only praying that she was listening to me, "If you follow it."

Yes damn it, I was throwing the book. Or throwing the book out, one of the two. She stared at me; I imagined that the victims of Medusa felt a similar cooling and foreboding. For a moment, like a snake about to strike, she leant backwards, just a little, eyes wide - almost entertained, almost twitching with anger, before making a very hasty exit, bashing into my shoulder as she went. Christ that woman can push. I stood rigid as she passed me, bruising her more than she bruised me. I watched her go, calling out only as she almost yanked the door off its hinges.

"Yianna."

She looked over her shoulder, eyes now more like a doe in the headlights, and I sighed in something akin to defeat. Maybe it was pity, I don't know, I don't ponder these things.

"Happy Birthday."


	30. Last Rites

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

I knew it was a mistake to get involved with a fledgling.

I knew it was a mistake but I did it anyway.

I kept telling myself that it was going to stop.

That one day I would turn her away.

I never could.

It was my own stupid fault. I got myself into deeper shit than I could swim in, and I only had myself to blame for it.

There wasn't much to pack in my office. My paperwork and stationary would all fit into one box, I didn't keep any of my own blades here anyway, they were locked in a safe at home. I felt so sick being here now, and eternally grateful that I was alone. Me and her - it was a piece of knowledge that I could have done without. I didn't know how these things happened, surely it must have been beyond the scientific elite, I could only describe it as something Nyx had done. And that frightened me even more.

I never knew how Spiridion could have known to enter then, had he been listening outside the door for the entire time, had he followed Yianna here? I always thought Spiridion didn't know about this, I was sure that he would have actively discouraged it if he had. How had he known to bring that old key for today? I would have to see Spiridion today, he was still my ill-paid nanny, if that. I wished I could go home and bury my head in the sand for a couple of hundred years until this blew over. Who was I kidding? Hot coals of shame burned at every step I took, packing up my entire career into a small cardboard box. I'd never work in a school again, Yianna would see to that. And was she so wrong?

"May I come in?"

I whipped around and my eyes widened. I hadn't bothered to lock or even shut the door to my office, figuring that I wouldn't be in here very long. Thanatos stood in the doorway, her long black robes brushing the floor as she went.

They say that when you meet the High Priestess of your House, you instantly remember the first time you met them – when you were dragged in front of them by your Tracker, when you started your life anew. A brief flash of me standing before her, sixteen, not yet a man, the tattoo on my forehead undefined, my skin sore where it had been etched into me for the rest of my life. The respectable doctor's son. As she looked up from her desk, and up at me, I remembered thinking, how ironic it was to be staring death in the face. It could surely only be a bad omen, if I believed in them. Never before had the presence of a woman so akin to Death been so comforting.

I was too respectful of Thanatos to say no, and so I was silent as she stepped into my office. Following her were Spiridion, and the blonde vampyre who I had met after Ellie's funeral. Thanatos carried a small black book under her arm. I felt like a dying man being served his last rites.

"Sorry for the intrusion." Said Thanatos gracefully, "I felt it urgent to speak with you."

"Why?" I winced, "What could you possibly have to say to me?"

"About Anastasie." She completed her sentence as if I had never spoken.

"I know my sanity has been somewhat questionable of late," I said, "But I'm not quite that far gone." I shook my head to myself in fierce denial, "No. I have nothing to say about her."

"You don't." She said, clasping her hands in front of her, "But your ghost does."

I winced again like her words had physically struck me down. Thanatos could talk to spirits, that we all knew. Dead or alive, however, that was another matter. We all knew it went further than that, but to what extent, none of us were sure. It gave her a direct route into our subconscious. "You've been talking to my ghost have you?"

It was rude, but I wasn't in any state to offer manners.

"No, but I've been listening." She said calmly. "Now you listen very carefully because this is of importance to you."

I couldn't disobey that tone. She gave me an eagle-eye and I fell silent.

"I understand Ollie..."

"Oliver." I said stoutly. Thanatos smiled and looked away as she realised her mistake. I hated being called 'Ollie', not my friends, not even my brothers and sister were allowed to call me 'Ollie'. Surely she had only meant to comfort me, instead of pricking me like a thorn.

"Oliver." She corrected herself, "I do realise what's happening to you. I understand it's not entirely voluntary and I know it's not your fault."

I glared as if she had a screw loose. "And what did you hear?" I said, "When you listened to my ghost?"

"I heard plenty." She smoothed down her robes, "Your souls talk to each other all the time you know, even when you're not together. Here..." she said, passing me the little black book. In a second I knew it was the photo album that Anastasie had spoken about. I stiffened as I flicked through all those perfect memories.

"What are you going to tell me? What, that, these things happen?"

"Clearly they do."

I snapped. "My inclinations towards..." I hissed, before giving up completely. There was no point in losing your temper at Thanatos. "I'm not that kind of person Thanatos."

"I know that Oliver, we all do. That's why this is so interesting."

I had no answer for her, I couldn't even look at her. I was like a child that was in the process of being told off, squirming in their skin.

"We are your friends here. I trust you've met Lenobia?"

So that was who 'Lenobia' was. In fact, it did ring a bell in the back of my head. "I have indeed had the pleasure."

"Dragon..." she whispered, "I'm so, so sorry..."

I answered to the name as if it were my own, before I even realised that I had, and I found I even knew what she was referring to. "You have nothing to be sorry for!" I told her fiercely, "You let me go. My friend, I am eternally grateful to you." My hand slowly covered my mouth. The words were mine, and they weren't. What was wrong with me? I saw that scene replay, and replay, and replay. I had thought I knew what pain was until I sat there at that precise moment in time. "Oh God..." I murmured, as I saw myself fail to protect her again, and again. "What have I done?"

But these memories were not my own – they were my own, but they were none that _I _had ever lived. At the same time, I argued, they were my own, as real as life I now lived. It was like I had merged with another person, another entity entirely, and in blips, cracks, disturbances, I switched from being one, to being the other.

"Blind passion is soul-consuming." Said Thanatos, "Especially from past lives. Have you had any black-outs recently?"

I closed my eyes and concentrated, pushing that comment, and that other entity to the back of my mind, however I had a hunch that the further back I pushed it, the further I pushed it back into myself. The feeling of there being two people inside me began to fade, and I became one again, though not without the knowledge I now had. Hot pain and anger shot through me like pressure that couldn't escape, and kept building.

"I – I can't do this now, please..." I said, wiping my eyes on my sleeve.

Thanatos gave a sideways glance to Lenobia and Spiridion, and both of them left the room, however, she herself did not. Sitting down opposite me, she leant forward so that her eyes were level with mine as I hung my head in shame, defeat, and mourning.

"Oliver?" she asked, her voice soft and drawing.

"All this proves is that I'm not half as good a person as I thought I was, as I wanted to be." I said, "I thought I was better than those vile men you see in the newspapers who've had affairs with pupils but as it turns out, I'm not."

"I don't think that's true." She said, "The circumstances are a bit odd, granted. And you aren't that much older than her, she'll Change soon."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "You should _not _be supportive of this!" I said, "It's the last thing you should think is acceptable!"

"I think you love her." She said, the words making my back rigid, "You definitely loved her when you lost her all those years ago."

I'm sure I must have looked murderous. "That was my past life! That – that was Bryan Lankford, Thanatos, that was him, not me, I have no memory of ever being him nor any inclination to be!"

"Both of you keep trying to distance yourselves from the truth by considering your past lives as different people, when in reality they aren't." She said, "Over one hundred years ago, it was you who proposed to her, it _was_ her that said yes, it was her you mourned so badly that you killed yourself in grief."

"Well I'm glad you know it." I retaliated, "I am my own person, not a cheap copy of someone else! I want my own life, not the dinner scraps of someone else's!"

"Well of course you want your own life, but you can't change what happened in your past life anymore than you can change what happened in your own past. What's done is done and yes, this is biting you in the arse. But you can't deny that your past life is having an effect on your present one, and you are subconsciously responding to it."

"Did you know Dragon Lankford?"

She shook her head. "No, no I didn't know him, I had heard of him though, he was quite a private person though, there weren't many pictures of him in the media, despite his fencing titles. I didn't recognise the resemblance." She smiled, "I suppose this proves that I'm finally getting older."

"What do you mean?"

"Reincarnation isn't a common thing, I admit, but if it occurs, it's usually not just one soul but a group of souls, it usually involves unfinished business and it takes at least two to tango. As we move from life to life we remain in the same circles, of family and friends, we always find each other again, like our souls are drawn to each other, until we find the Otherworld." She threw a pointing hand gesture at me, "Yours' certainly are. That's what the concept of soulmates is." I cringed, "But hardly anyone recognises their friends and enemies for who they were in previous lives." She said, "You must have loved her very much."

"He did." Was all I could say.

She went on. "But only the oldest vampyres see examples of it amongst our own race, we live so long to see spirits go through more than one life is pretty impressive. Either that or the spirits in question have particularly bad luck."

"Which better fits the description."

She sighed. "What's running through your head?"

"Like you don't already know."

She smiled cheekily as if to confirm my accusation. "Yes but I want to know how _you _interpret it."

"I'm ashamed." I told her firmly, my voice trembling now with anger, "I'm ashamed that I could even do it! I'm ashamed that my sense of right and wrong has apparently _completely _absconded along with my common decency!"

Thanatos' face was that of a mother's. "It's not all your fault."

My temper fell through the floor. "How can you say that? It _**is **_my fault, this is _**all**_,my, fault, Thanatos! I am responsible for her! She trusted me and I took advantage of her!"

"The girl's got a mind of her own Oliver, there wasn't any 'taking advantage'. You can take advantage of a fifteen year old, or even a drunk eighteen year old. You don't take advantage of a sane sober adult."

"'Adult' being the not so operative word." I sighed, "And I paid the price."

"The price?"

I looked at her dead on. "And why not? Is there any existing reason why I should consider myself worthy to stay on at the House of Night?"

"You're a bloody good teacher, that's why."

I wiped my forehead. This was far too hard. "Yianna won't have me back and she's right not to! And you ask about price? I need the money Thanatos. Think about what I inherited from my dad, the taxman had £400,000 of that, it won't last forever and other teaching jobs don't pay, and even if they did, I'm not qualified to teach humans, I'd have to do a PGCE, which is more study. I won't be able to support them. That's the price I paid today." I hung my head low, almost between my knees and sighed, "I should have become a doctor, then maybe I could give my family the life they deserve."

"And you'd be so busy that you'd never be able to see them and end up hiring a nanny. They'd prefer to see you happy."

"My happiness is irrelevant!" I said, almost hysterical, "I have centuries to be happy, they only have decades." I lifted my head and gazed out of the window, "If I'd known I'd have to provide for them, things would have been very different."

"Becoming a doctor wouldn't have made you a different person OIiver. In fact if you _had_ become a doctor you'd probably have run into her anyway, and you'd still have been an adult and she'd still have been a fledgling."

"And that still doesn't make it right."

Once again, I buried my head in my hands. I thought I was stronger, I really did. It was a personal failing. Other people managed to avoid these situations, why the Hell had this happened to me? What I felt for her, gratitude, respect, and something that was piercing me slowly but sharply, I forced into the recesses of my mind. Oh God what had I permitted to happen? And more frightening still, was how, if I looked deep enough down, I wanted it to be right. Couldn't we have met two years down the line, when we were both adults? I was so angry, I was angry that I had allowed this to happen but I was also upset that it couldn't continue.

"Confused dot com?"

"What?"

Thanatos leant forward, her elbows on her thighs. "As we've proven today, there's a part of you that you didn't know about before. That part of you, Oliver, that loved her then, which is every fibre of your being except the conscious one, is very much alive and far more predominant than you think. It's the same part in all of us that makes us do crazy things. It fills your head when your own thoughts start to slip, it's taken over you when you've kissed her and made love to her, and even when you just began to think you wanted to. And you can't control that, nobody can."

I cringed. "That doesn't make it right."

"Doesn't it?" her eyebrow arched into a curve, "Sometimes you just fall in love with someone, and you don't really think about whatever they happen to be. And you just happened to fall in love. If you'd happened to have fallen in love two years down the line, nobody would have cared." She said, "It doesn't matter what happens now."

I wiped away a tear that was just forming in the corner of my eye. "Yes it bloody well does! Social services will come down on me like a ton of bricks." I said, "I'll lose them."

"That's not what I meant." She said, sitting nearer to me and resting a hand on my shoulder, "She loves you too you know." I'm sure she must have felt me stiffen beneath her palm, "Even if you left here now, and went far away, don't you think that the moment she Changed that she wouldn't come looking for you?"

"She'd be wasting her time, her life." I said, "And she doesn't deserve that." Thanatos tilted her head to the side, "She's being transferred to London. For her own good I think."

"I meant to show you this." She said, pulling out her little black book and passing it to me.

"This is the photo album..." I said as I fixatedly turned each of the pages in turn, "The one Anastasie was talking about. You sent this?"

She shook her head. "No. None of us know who sent it." She said, "But you can quite clearly see what I mean."

"Crystal."

Thanatos smiled at me. "Now." She said, getting to her feet, "You go home, relax, don't worry. I'll see what I can do for you." She pointed at the album in my hands, "Can I hold onto that for the time being?"

I blinked several times to jerk myself out of my stupor. "Sure." I said, handing it back to her. "What for?"

She tapped the side of her nose coyly. "You'll see."

Suddenly, I wasn't sure if I was physically or mentally capable of not worrying.

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

Another knock on my door. Can nobody leave me unbothered today?

I sighed. "Come in." And if you get out just as fast, I shan't feel obliged to strangle you.

"Evening dear."

It was Thanatos. I dropped my pen. This could take a while. "Thanatos." I lifted my hand towards the visitor's chair. "Please, have a seat."

"I'll stand, thank you." She said, lifting the little black folder out from under her arm and into my view, "I actually had something to show you."

"What is it?"

She passed it to me. "This was given to me by the chaperone of the Tulsa House, Lenobia? I believe you are acquainted with her."

I snapped my fingers a few times. "Oh yes, the very blonde lady, petite."

I hadn't met her many times, but I did like Lenobia. She was the sort of no-nonsense person that I found myself in constant agreement with. Thanatos knew her well, along with most of the other current Council members. "What is it?" I asked, looking at the cover.

"It's a photo album."

"May I?"

"That's why I brought it." she said, "At least I don't have to ask you to sit down."

Wordlessly, I opened the photo album. The photos in it were old, the definition wasn't as good as it would have been if taken with a modern camera. Still, they were good, clear, colour photos, not those black and white ones from Spiridion's younger days. I'd date them at around the turn of the millennium, give or take a decade. I had to look carefully at the faces to make sure that I wasn't seeing things. I turned over the page, and subsequently found some more close-up ones, and my surprise was confirmed. It was Oliver, and that girl, in every single picture, sometimes it was just one of them, pulling faces and grinning for the camera. I had seen her earlier in the day, and she was definitely still a fledgling, whereas in these pictures her Mark had filled out completely. Come to think of it, both of them looked a bit older than they did now. The first thing that popped into my head was photoshop, it was easy to edit and age photos, but then there were some wedding pictures there as well, and I could see Lenobia standing in the background of some of them. _What the Hell was going on here?_ When I extended my senses towards it, for fear of lies being discovered, plans foiled, I felt hardly any fear at all. The only fear I felt was a fear between the two of them in the pictures, of one for the other, but not enough for a psionosphere. I knew why. It wasn't a piece of information that many people knew, even though it was the simplest thing in the world. It was because the only thing that can override your greatest fear, is your greatest desire. I didn't hate it, it wasn't a bad thing to know, in fact more people probably should know it, but then again, it gave me a weakness. My own greatest fear. This was just a photo album, not a person, just a remnant of memories and emotions, and still from it I could feel all of that like it was a person. The desire simply to be together outweighed any fear that these two people might have had. Their faces were alive with happiness and love – my stomach tightened, it wasn't something that I had a lot of expertise in.

"What is this?" I asked Thanatos, putting the album flat on the desk in front of me and leaning my elbows either side of it so that I could raise my hands in a shrug.

"It belonged to some friends of Lenobia's." She said, "They died one hundred and fifty years ago."

The corner of my mouth tensed in disbelief. "What?"

"She was murdered by Kalona's favourite son, Rephaim." She said, "He killed himself in grief. Zoey Redbird will vouch that every word is true, and I believe Lenobia was actually witness to both events." Finally, Thanatos sat in the chair, "They were both teachers, he and she. He Fencing, and she Spells & Rituals, at the Tulsa House."

"What are you trying to say?" I asked her, I'm fairly sure my face was completely blank, "Are you trying to say that this was them, a hundred and fifty years ago, what? That they've been reborn?"

"You are a High Priestess of Nyx Yianna. You know how She works."

Could I honestly say that I fully and blindly trusted Nyx on something like this? I honestly didn't know. Surely it couldn't be that simple! What, I was supposed to forgive him, well both of them, for a highly inappropriate relationship, because they had been an item in their past lives? It doesn't work like that.

"What am I supposed to say Thanatos?"I asked her, "Is this supposed to change something?"

"It's merely for your consideration." She replied calmly.

"It doesn't change the reality." I told her, "It doesn't change the fact that what they did was wrong."

"It's not like she's twelve Yianna."

"It doesn't matter if she's eighteen. Even humans have this policy in their schools. It doesn't matter if pupils are eighteen, relationships with teachers are forbidden. For the life of me I don't know what on Earth was going on inside his head!"

"You trusted him?"

"Absolutely!"

It was such a shame. I _did _trust Oliver, with my life, at least I had done. Why had someone so sensible managed to get themselves tangled up in this? Surely he knew the weight of what would come crashing down on him? He was supposed to be intelligent!

"Yianna, Oliver is not the sort of person to enter into those sorts of things, I know that, you know that, good Lord even he knows that!"

"So why did it happen?" I asked, "Alright, if you think that they were drawn to each other because of their past lives then fine, I'll believe you on that, but that doesn't explain why it couldn't wait until she was Changed, at the very least!"

"I considered all of this myself." She said, resting her elbows on the arms of the chair, "Yianna, throughout our various lives we tend to travel within the same circles of family, friends, even enemies. If we have loved someone, really and truly loved them before, the speed at which it recurs in a subsequent life is astonishing. That part of us that loved them before, which, is every single part of us except the conscious part, takes over like second nature. In their defence, it wasn't something they could necessarily help." She continued, "It's actually the same with people that we hate. No matter how hard you try, your head cannot always overrule your heart."

I sat at my desk and felt a little bit defeated. There was no way I was about to argue with Thanatos, I had too much respect for her to dare suspect that she was wrong, but what was I supposed to do?

"So, am I supposed to let him stay? Is that appropriate?"

"The entire school is already talking and if you make him go they will only be reassured in their convictions. Rumours are powerful, destructive, nasty things and I would not encourage them under any circumstances. It's not always the best thing to follow the rules. I thought your stint in court had taught you that."

The fact that these words sounded so very like Spiridion's annoyed me to the core. "It taught me that people should get what they deserve, some way or another." I sighed, "And yet I'm not sure exactly what they deserve."

I kept flicking through the pictures in the album. Some were older, some newer, probably spanning about a century, which made them young for vampyres. And these pictures showed how much they loved each other. I could feel it just by holding the leather-bound album, it travelled through my fingers and up my arms, it was that immensely powerful feeling of endearment that most people only dreamed of. All the wedding photos – these weren't official ones, just ones probably taken by a friend, I imagined the official album was under lock and key somewhere, but they were so beautiful. I flicked on past. Although all of them were noteworthy, there was one picture that caught my eye. It was just a group of people, all sitting on a bench, most of them were wearing fencing uniforms so it was taken at a competition, I imagine. Again, there was Oliver, and Anastasie, with a full Mark and leaning against his shoulder. But there, just to Oliver's right, in the middle of the group, legs crossed and arms folded but face smiling...

Spiridion.


	31. A Tablespoon of Guilt

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

_Have you been to Scarborough Fair? _

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, _

_Remember me from one who lives there, _

_For he once was a true love of mine._

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

When I spilled, when I told Marie everything, I couldn't see in my head how it might be a bad idea.

For so long now, I'd wanted a big sister to confide in, to bounce my ideas off, to tell me when I was about to do something stupid.

Marie had hugged me, and soothed me, but I had no idea what she really thought. I remembered her face when I told her about Oliver, who he was, who we were, it was one of shock, like 'wow, you really are a lunatic aren't you?' In spite of that, she had talked with me about it, she'd listened to me, passed me tissues and bars of chocolate, but I had no idea if she actually believed me. I prayed to Nyx that she did, that she was open-minded enough for it, I knew many weren't and quite rightly, how on Earth could I expect her to? I was asking a very big question of her, can I be your sister, can I live with you, oh and by the way I'm in love with my teacher and would you be down with that?

What did I expect?

Now I wished I had something to show her, I wished I had taken some pictures of that photo album with my phone so I could show her, I wish I could have whisked her back three centuries and shown her the sunflower sitting in the vase in the classroom of the young S&R professor, carefully snuck there by a smitten fledgling whose love she secretly returned.

I wished I could show her my thoughts and fears, as I could Yianna.

But I couldn't.

Yianna's chiding was short, and most certainly not sweet. Quivering in my jeans and hoodie, I made myself stand up straight in front of her, as she took off the glasses that I was sure she didn't need, and placed them neatly at her side.

"I suppose you know why you're here."

I closed my eyes slowly, and nodded my head. "Yes ma'am."

"So before we start I want to tell you that I know about your..." she held her two fingers up in a v-sign and clutched them in unison, "'past lives'. Before you try and explain. You've got both Thanatos and Spiridion fighting your corner so I don't want to hear any more about it do you understand?"

I nodded again. Yianna, oddly, didn't look angry with me. It looked like she been angry for so long that she simply lacked the energy to do it anymore. It was an appearance that was unbecoming to her; it didn't suit her any more than the dark circles under her eyes, cleverly hidden with concealer and a thin line of kohl behind her eyelashes. She looked like she was worn down by the world doing everything it could to throw a spanner in the works. Had it not been Yianna I was referring to, 'defeat' might have been a suitable adjective to describe it. All she had to do was look at me, in all her perfection, and I felt dirty. She held her hand in the air, straightened out, her palm facing the ground, drawing a plane on which both of us would have to stand if we were to remain amicable.

"I don't know what to say to you Anastasie." She said, as she flicked a pencil around in her fingers, the soft tapping against the wood of her desk interrupting the conversation, "I honestly don't know what to say. And even if I did I'm not sure I'd get through to you." I hung my head low. "These rules don't exist for the good of my health Anastasie." She continued, "But they do exist for the good of yours. Any relationship, with a man nine years your senior, in a position of power over you and still not concerned that what he's doing isn't right, is dangerous. If he can't see that then he shouldn't be working with children. If you can't see that then you should be made to regret it. I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't happen, usually I have to read the riot act to stupid little girls without a brain cell between them. Not girls like you."

"Please don't fire him..." I said quietly. She gave me her startled, yet entertained expression, the one she saved for people when she couldn't quite believe her ears, usually for idiocy. "It's not his fault."

"Really?" the sarcasm was faint but obvious, "So, out of curiosity, would you have done it if I had been standing in the room with you?"

"No."

"Then you know it was wrong." She said. I had nothing, she was right, "And it is your fault as much as it is his."

"I'm sorry..."

"So you both keep telling me!" She said, "But that doesn't change the eventuality! The only reason I'm not expelling you is because you're transferring anyway!"

"Please Yianna..." I said, my eyes starting to become teary, "Please don't do this to him..."

"What I do or don't do to him does not concern you." She said, "Go and finish packing up your things. When you're done, you'll be on the first train to Okehampton with your sister. In the mean time..." she said, holding out her phone, "I'm confiscating your phone. You can have it back before you go. And for as long as you are a fledgling Anastasie, be you under my care at Scarborough or that of High Priestess Tatiana in London, you are forbidden from speaking to or contacting Professor Pendragon. Do I make myself clear?"

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

I had got home that day, and immediately tripped over a fire engine that Eric had tactfully left lying on the middle of the floor. I tripped, but fortunately, the sofa was there to catch me. I was still there at seven am when Spiridion let himself in to start the morning's duties and found me curled up there in foetal position, eyes staring at that same patch of carpet since the early hours, not moving, not speaking.

Spiridion, comically, tripped over the exact same fire engine and almost went flying. "Bloody Hell!" He shouted, his voice booming over me like a tannoy. "What the fuck is that doing there?"

I didn't think he'd even noticed me there, I hadn't moved. Ignoring me completely, he made his way towards the kitchen, and since the kitchen and living room were essentially the same room divided by the remains of a wall that had been knocked through to create more space, I could see him easily.

"Oliver lad." He said, dropping the kettle onto its charger and smacking on the boil-lever, "You're a doormat."

"How so?" I said, the first words I'd uttered since I'd left that place.

"Crumpling like a pansy the moment Yianna raises her voice." He said in his usual dismissive tone, "You aren't one to get walked over. Pull yourself together man!"

"It's very different when she's absolutely right and perfectly within her rights." He ignored me again, so I carried on: "I didn't have to explain." I said, "If she knows what I did, then she knows the reasons behind it." There was a short silence, filled with nothing but the clinking of china against granite as Spiridion practically threw two mugs onto the kitchen side and chucked teabags into them, "You knew, didn't you?"

The clinking stopped. "You weren't exactly discreet."

"Hm," I said, "I thought I'd been very discreet."

"Can't fool me Oliver." He said, moving towards the fridge to fetch some milk, "I've been around too long for that."

I sensed his disdain at the suggestion that I might have fooled him – Spiridion was an old vampyre, a clever vampyre, whose sixth senses were far better-honed than mine. I had doubted that I could underestimate Spiridion, indeed Spiridion was far too careful to reassure us all that any underestimation of him was inane. I stretched out from the foetal position I was in, running my legs down the cold fabric of the sofa.

"You never discouraged it."

He dropped the teaspoon against the side of the mug, creating a little chime that flowed smoothly into my brain.

I continued. "You've been a teacher for so many years. Well over three centuries."

He looked at me from over his shoulder, but I couldn't quite see his eye from the angle. "Well call me old-fashioned." He said, pressing his lips together as he put the teabags in the bin, "When I started teaching, in 1734, I was barely older than you are now. At some point I would have most of the young girls trying to throw themselves at me." He said, "The culture shock was much bigger back then than it is now. Now both worlds are moving towards equality, whereas then you went straight from a male-dominated world to a female-dominated one. Of course the boys felt imprisoned and the girls felt liberated, I think that's where the modern hate of vampyres comes from, it's a throwback from the days when being Marked was a great dishonour for a boy because you lost your authority, your birthright. The girls of course, were so accustomed to being leered at that they almost thought there was something wrong. There was an outrageous amount of flirting and backroom downtime done. I would say that relationships between teachers and fledglings were commonplace in England up until around the 90 – the 1790s. People were very quick to turn a blind eye then, pretend it wasn't happening."

"An honourable warrior does not take advantage of girls much younger than himself." I answered.

"Remember Oliver that most male teachers in Houses of Night, are not warriors. Unless they teach Fencing or Martial Arts, or occasionally Equestrian Studies. Teachers of literature, poetry, drama, the arts, music, S&R, sociology, biology, aren't warriors they are academics. A lot of them weren't above it."

"You still haven't answered my question." I told him, now staring at the faint cracks in the ceiling, "So, what? You condone it?"

"Of course not." He said, "But over time I saw that many of those 'relations', were wrong but harmless flings, some were toxic and dangerous and people got hurt, and then of course there were some of them that fell in love." He carried over two mugs of tea and placed one on the coffee table in front of me, "I'm not fully accepting of Nyx." He said, "But if She saw no reason to smite them down then why should I?" he sat down and warmed his hands on his mug.

"You don't believe?" I asked him, like a small child being told a bedtime story.

"I, acknowledge." He responded, "But I don't worship."

"Why?"

"History." He said, "I suppose vampyres well, we all believe in Nyx, and that's because most of us have seen proof of Her ourselves at some point or another, some more so than others, but that's why the faith is so strong. It's not like human religion where you can choose to believe if you want to, it's completely open to debate. A lot of human atheists cite their reasons for not believing due to, oh I dunno," he threw his hand in the air, "The world wars, famine, poverty, crime. All that evil, all that unnecessary death and no one to stop it. At least you can choose to believe that there's no God. You can't choose to believe there's no Nyx yet these things still happen."

When you thought about it, Spiridion's words struck an uneasy truth in me. It was easy enough for people to plead free will, but then if free will was sacrosanct we wouldn't have laws, police, or prisons. Look at me, I mean I had broken just about every rule in the book, and what was I pleading? I hadn't gone out that evening thinking that I was definitely going to be taking Anastasie to bed. And still I had managed it. Was that free will, or Nyx's will?

"What happened to you?" I asked him. I didn't have to elaborate.

Spiridion tightened his lips again in a frown. "When I was Marked, my mother had me thrown into the Thames with rocks tied to my feet."

For a moment, I thought he was joking. He could have so easily been joking, that light, amusing demeanour with which the words fell from his mouth, I had to listen hard, and then replay it around my head to reassure myself that he wasn't being sarcastic.

"You're being serious?"

"It's not my habit of making jokes about my health." He said, "I might take a step too far one day." He said, before looking deeply into the mug of tea in his hand, and taking a very sad tone. "I came so close to drowning as makes no difference." He tilted the china in his hand gently, "So I chose Scarborough. I wanted to get as far away from London as modern transportation would take me." He narrowed his eyes and gave a smug look like he was looking back on those days and throwing two fingers up to them, "You don't ever forget that kind of betrayal."

"I bet."

"So when I found Anastasie Parisien in my tutor group, similarly betrayed by her family and cruelly bullied by her peers, it was easy to relate to her. I picked up the pieces every morning after classes, I put all the little shits in detentions, had them running laps around the Fencing Hall for hours on end. We had a deal." He said, smirking lopsidedly, "We'd write down her goals on paper, and each week, I'd send her a new one. It might be to score well in a subject she didn't like, to take a taunt without crying, or to eat a certain amount each mealtime, that kind of thing. Then, she had to make a list every week of the things that she achieved, and the things she maybe hadn't. She still has them somewhere. The idea was for me to try and understand what exactly it was that was holding her back, and it worked. You could tell, those tasks were the ones that were left undone each week, that were left unmanaged for weeks on end after I had repeatedly set them for her. It was a quiet and non-invasive way of working out what was going on inside her head." He chuckled, "Of course, not everybody saw it that way."

"That's why you were fired."

He glared daggers at me. "_I resigned_." He said, over-pronouncing every syllable, "_You_ Oliver Pendragon, were fired."

* * *

_Spiridion_

* * *

I had trouble pulling the children away from Oliver. Every single one of the brats ran over to him as soon as they descended the stairs like they hadn't seen him in months, squabbling over who got to hug his right arm and asking him if he was unwell. Oliver smiled when he saw them; curling his fingers around their hands and holding them all close. There was a parental talent there wasted on the vampyres. Then if he hadn't been Marked, it would have been a talent in swordsmanship wasted on the humans.

By the time I had finally got them out of the door - I fed the blighters, fried eggs and bacon indeed! I checked uniforms and school bags and made lunches - driven the tedious school run through all and sundry – the weather was bloody awful, I thought this was supposed to be July - and returned, Oliver still hadn't moved from where I left him, sitting on the sofa staring at the opposite wall in a dally daydream.

Fabulous.

And then better yet, the doorbell rang.

Oh woe.

"Will you be getting that then?"

No reply. I doubted Oliver could hear me. I was a little tempted to go and wave my hand in front of his face just to see if he was in fact in there and his brain hadn't switched into a vegetative state.

"Fine."

I hoisted myself off of my arse and threw myself in the direction of the front door, praying to God that no other fire engines would come between me and my goal. I swung the door open and propped myself up against it, and found myself staring at something horrible.

"Yianna."

She looked pleasant enough, but all you had to do was look at the eyes to know she was evil. "Spiridion." Her voice however, was not so pleasant.

"Now is that any way to greet an old friend?" I said, "Why don't you come in, now you've torn the flesh from his bones you could knaw on them a little more, it's all good protein?"

"I need to speak with Oliver." She said, "Without you."

"Why would I let you in?"

Where's that fire engine?

"I can very quickly have some warriors break the locks off." She said sweetly, "Anyway, I thought you might go for a job at London?"

"What with the reference you gave me?"

"Hm." She said, raising her eyebrows in a quirky retaliation, and mentally, I ticked off a point to her.

"Make it fast." I said, not bothering to hold the door open for her as she followed me in. For Yianna, I could be especially rude.

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

"Oliver."

"Yianna." He said, "What are you doing here?"

"Nyx forbid I have absolutely no idea." She said, her hands wedged deeply into the pockets of her black raincoat. I didn't invite her to sit down; I didn't think she expected me to. "You have a member of Nyx's High Council, and..." she glanced sideways at Spiridion, who was still present, even though I had heard Yianna ask for a private audience, "An arrogant arsewipe, fighting your corner Oliver, for reasons that I myself cannot fathom."

"I never asked them to defend me." I said, "I'm not worthy of defence, least of all by others."

"I've seen the photo album." She said, "I've heard the testimonies by people who 'knew' you. They tell me that this would have happened had you been her teacher, her nemesis or her brother-in-law. So, it seems, I have misunderstood the circumstances."

She glared at Spiridion again so as to quell that smug smirk that appeared on his face, ""I have a proposition for you. This does not change my personal opinion Oliver, if you had less to lose I would gladly see you gone tomorrow. So consider this my peace offering and we'll speak no more about it." I didn't answer, and she knew I wouldn't. "The position of Fencing Master is yours, if you want it." She said, making me blink hard and recheck that I'd heard her correctly, "On one condition."

"What is it?"

She took a breath. "You have no contact with Anastasie Parisien. You do not call her. You do not text her. You do not write to her. You do not e-mail her. You do not even so much as mention her. If any of the kids give you any trouble over any rumours, you put them straight in a faculty detention. If anyone asks you about it, no matter how good a friend they are to you, you deny it. Do I make myself clear?"

She smiled. It was an odd smile, I doubted Yianna genuinely felt sorry for me, and yet it wasn't a nasty victorious smile either.

"So," She said, "will I be seeing you in September?"

A shiver travelled down my spine, and struggling, I gave her a small smile back. I wanted to say 'fuck you', turn the job down and have done with the House of Night forever. I knew I couldn't. It didn't feel like it right now, but Yianna was saving my neck. "You will."

Suddenly her smile was more friendly. "I'm glad." She said, placing her hand on my shoulder as she got to her feet and made her way out, "I didn't want to lose you. That job is looking increasingly like the Defence Against the Dark Arts post at Hogwarts."

I tried to laugh, but it came out as a loud exhalation, and with it, I softened inside. I didn't know how the powers-that-be had convinced Yianna that I was telling the truth, but at that moment I was so grateful to them I was fairly sure I'd have grovelled for years in thanks, as debilitating as it was. My future was safe again.

"Yianna." I said, standing and extending my hand, "Thank you."

Taking my wrist firmly in the traditional vampyre handshake, she met my eye contact and genuinely looked pleased for the first time in a long time. "Until September."

Once I heard her car start up, I noted down the date from the bottom right hand corner of the computer screen across the room. 7th July 2157. From now until it's now again, I thought.

From now until it's now again. That could mean anything.

I leant against the window that faced out towards the coast. I could see the beautiful remains of Scarborough Castle, and what lay encased in the rock beneath it, and at the same time, I could see my reflection in the glass. My heart wrenched, but the pain was easy to swallow with a tablespoon of guilt. I have probably ruined a young girl's life. I've taken so many things from her and I've left her with nothing. That's not the way life's supposed to go when you're eighteen, past life or no. She should be with someone her own age with more to give her than me. I've not only tarnished my own reputation, I've tarnished hers as well. I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead to the cold glass. I'm an idiot, an idiot an idiot an idiot an idiot...

She will look back on this when she's older, and she'll regret she ever let me.


	32. Execution

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

_Parsley for cure of one bitter in heart,_

_Sage for strength until death does ye part,_

_Rosemary for faith so tight yet untaught,_

_Thyme for valour, and then want ye for naught._

* * *

_Lucy_

* * *

Back in at work today, I still didn't feel much better than I had yesterday. I would be hating men for at least the next couple of weeks. At least I only had these last few days to get through, until all the fledglings had gone, and then I would be on a train to Hull for my summer quicker than you can say 'big night out'. Sweeney Todd away! I'm very glad I didn't just say that out loud... Maybe I'll do it in my way out this morning. When none of the suckers can do jack about it. Until next year.

My daily to-do lists were calculated by the computer, anything that nobody else had time to do, they would enter it onto my schedule, and I was their girl. There was the usual, the manning the desk, doing the washing, cleaning the toilets, sweeping and mopping the floors, assisting RVpNs and doctors with routine procedures, but there were two entries that caught my eye. Blinking, I must have reread it through at least five times. Someone had told me to mark Oliver Pendragon's history as closed, and fax it over to Scarborough General, and then to close Anastasie Parisien's history, and send it to the London House of Night. Chewing on the end of my pencil, I leant over the back of my chair and spun it around to face Ezriel, who was busy folding linen at the back of the nurse's office.

"What's this about Oliver Pendragon's history?" I asked her.

The Head Nurse paused quickly to think, and then resumed folding. "Oh ignore that one." She said, "I don't know why it hasn't been removed from your list."

"Is he leaving?" I asked, "He only came in February."

Ezriel tutted to herself. "From the talk what been going around the fledgings, they reckon he was fired."

"Fired? Why?"

"Something illicit with one of his tutees." She said, "Bet you can guess who."

I blinked. "Anastasie Parisien? There was something going on between them?"

"Like I say, it's rumours. But they're rumours that Yianna's trampling on like a mad bull." She said, "Fired or not, Yianna definitely gave the order to send both histories, so he definitely went at some point. It doesn't matter anyway, because he was reinstated less than twenty-four hours later."

How interesting... "So this one about her history?" I said, "Ignore that one too?"

"Nope, that one's good to go." She replied, "I imagine Yianna's expelled her and spared him, what with children to look after."

Grimacing slightly, I remembered going into that house when neither of them were particularly healthy and helping with the children, taking down Anastasie's progress reports. I remembered the gut feeling I'd had deep down in my abdomen when I saw them together, the chemistry they had, the way they interacted like they'd known each other their entire lives, and once again, I wondered. I tried to fight back a smile as something; almost akin to confidence arose inside me.

Had I, actually been right?

* * *

_Yianna_

* * *

I had officially started the countdown until the end of term. It was nine o' clock on Wednesday evening; I had precisely sixty hours of work left. Finally, the visiting Houses for the Symposium had left or were leaving, with the instruction that they had to vacate by tomorrow at midnight at the latest. The porters needed time to see them out before they went for their very well-earned holidays too. The fledglings would be gone by midnight on Friday, their trackers not far behind them. I always find it odd that fledglings always seem to think that once their trackers have dropped them off at the House of Night, that's the last of it. A tracker was there to watch you every time you were off campus until you Changed. You would never see them, but they would always be there. So flights were booked, train tickets bought, coaches and taxis ordered, and the student body was alight with the prospect of home.

Well, most of it.

Those whose parents rejected them would be staying on here. Since most of the staff lived on site it wasn't a problem, but it meant that I would be staying on too, officially or not. I let myself smile – I had, believe it or not, enjoyed my first year here at Scarborough. The first time I had been back here since I was a pupil myself and, it had been eventful, to say the least. I had thought that nobody here would remember me, they saw so many different faces year in year out that I surely have just been another one of those. And yet Gwenhwyfar had remembered, so had Spiridion, and Aleron. They were the same set of wise and wonderful faces that had greeted me all those years ago. And now I was here and I was their superior? Sighing to myself as I gathered my bag and my car keys, I began to miss the days of anonymity, when I could do anything, say anything and nobody would really care.

But I hadn't been given this opportunity to make a pig's ear of it. Not under any circumstances. When I was in school, I would never have dreamed of trying to be Thanatos, I wouldn't have dared. And now, that's all I ever found myself doing. Trying to be my mentor, and I had a lot of catching up to do.

As I did up the buttons on the front of my coat in the mirror, someone knocked on my door.

"Come in."

The door opened, and Lenobia, the Horse Mistress of the Tulsa House, stepped around it.

"Our coach is here." She said, extending her hand to me, "I just wanted so thank you for having us, it's been a marvellous week. I can see how hard you've worked to make this all come together and it was brilliant."

Smiling at the compliment I shook her hand. "It's been an absolute pleasure Lenobia."

"Well, thank you again." She said, nodding her head and turning to go. Just before the door, she stopped, and turned around again. "And, Yianna."

"Yes?"

Her face was wise, wise beyond my years at least, as she said these few words. "At her request, his oath to her was to temper strength with mercy." She said, "You could learn from her, I think."

And with that, she was gone, and I was alone again. To temper strength with mercy eh? If only we were all perfect. Did she mean learn from Anastasie Parisien, or from Anastasia Lankford? Or both, as they were essentially one and the same?

I now had the task of driving Anastasie to Scarborough Station. I had considered delegating the task to one of the porters or one of the warriors, but then I had thought that a bad idea. I didn't want anybody asking her invasive questions about why she was leaving. I didn't want her to answer out of anger and fuel any more of those stupid rumours. In many ways, she was as volatile now as she had been when she first tried to throw herself off of the castle keep. She needed time to heal, and time to rejuvenate, and she would not find either of those things in Scarborough.

And yet, in many ways, I did feel sorry for Anastasie. I would never admit this to her of course, but, I genuinely did believe that she loved him. I genuinely believed that he loved her. And yes, I bit my lip, I did believe that Nyx had given them a second chance. And the crimes they had committed were in reality only secondary to one: they were before their time.

Slinging my bag over my shoulder and locking my office door behind me, and strode down the marble hallway that was now a part of my legacy, and I wondered what many people had wondered about me since the moment I stepped into this place again.

Would I ever, truly, learn?

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

I should have been happy to go with Marie and Philip that night.

Hadn't that been what I had wanted? During those dark days all I had wanted was for someone to fix me like you would an engine or machine, and send me on my way to greener pastures. Al I had needed was a little push in the right direction, and someone that believed in me to see me through. I knew that as long as I stayed at Scarborough, it wouldn't matter how much progress I made, how 'normal' I became, because all those petty teenagers would always plaster me with the preconceived, sixteen year-old version of me.

I should be happy, up until February; I had begun to doubt that I would ever change. I was going somewhere where no one would follow me, where no one would know who I had been before.

I was sitting in Yianna's car, my cheek pressed against the window, on the way to Scarborough Station. We would go from Scarborough to Manchester Picadilly, and then on down south. Marie had been optimistic; she reckoned we could make the journey back to Devon before the Sun came up. But just in case, I had packed a large heavy coat in my luggage. I had only one small suitcase with me. Everything else had been boxed up and was being sent my special delivery, to avoid taking my entire life with me on the train. All I had in my bag was another pair of jeans, an extra top, the coat, my pyjamas and night bag. It felt like so little, and I was going such a long way. I had heard about Devon – one of the most idyllic places in the UK, deeply rural, and extremely beautiful. There were so many things that I hadn't thought about – how was I going to consume blood? I wasn't in the company of an adult vampyre, would that include some kind of out-of-school guardian to be close by? How would I get on with my form at London? Was Tatiana anything like Yianna? All these unanswered questions were fuelled by a flicker of excitement at the prospect of turning my life around.

So, I should have been happy.

I shivered, even inside the warm car. I saw Yianna turn an eye to me, and then back to the road. I found myself bitterly detesting Yianna, simply because she had done the right thing. All those dark thoughts from those dark days began to resurface in my mind, that grinding feeling that I was lower than dirt almost making my skin itch. I was at the bottom of a very deep chasm with a very heavy weight weighing down on me, slowly crushing the life out of me, with no way out. What had I done?

Oliver's brothers and sister would grow up without their brother because of me. It wasn't like it was in films and TV shows, rescue such-and-such otherwise a bomb will detonate, do such-and-such otherwise these children will never see their father again. It was very, very real. Every time I thought I was helping Oliver, every time I helped them with homework, sent them to bed, made their meals, washed and ironed their clothes, even the time I turned Oliver's alarm clock off deliberately, I realised that I wasn't helping them, I was destroying them. I had come into a family, a beautiful, warm, loving family, I had moved into their lives, impeded upon their generosity, and in the end, all I had succeeded in doing was separating them.

Without his job, Oliver would be bankrupt in less than five years. Even if he did get another job, he would never be able to afford to bring up seven children on it alone. He couldn't look after said children and have a full-time job, he would need some kind of nanny, and Spiridion sure as Hell wouldn't expect to do this for free.

No foster home can take seven children.

Even if a miracle occurred, and Oliver could make enough money to keep them all, he would be very, very poor. And I had done that to him. My motor functions are wired to _my _brain, and my brain alone. How could I have been so stupid? I had done this to the man I loved, for my own selfish whims. The thing that meant more to him than anything in the world, and I had taken it away from him.

I fought to repel tears as I dragged my suitcase over the bumpy pavement and into the station building. Philip and Marie stood in the waiting area, their cases parked beside them. Marie had switched a sunhat for an umbrella, wrapped up in a coat on top of some kind of sundress. She greeted me with a hug, and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't hold her back. I went limp in her grasp, while she rubbed my arms and sympathised how I must have been sorry to leave this place after so many years. Her greeny-blue eyes told me a lot more than her mouth ever did. She knew full well why I was so upset, but she would never say it in front of Yianna. Marie, of course, never knew what had happened, never knew what Yianna could do. No one had told her about all of this and I certainly wasn't going to. This was my burden, and I was determined that I was going to bear it alone as I so bloody well should.

For the first time in my life, I didn't want help.

Walking out onto the platform, I expected to feel the tingle of misting rain on my face, but instead the rain had decided to subside for the moment, not least for the large raincloud that bore down over Scarborough. I instantly felt less worried about frying to a crisp in the Sun, alien phaser-beams couldn't penetrate that thing. Marie took one glance at the cloud, and then at her watch, and folded her arms around herself and bounced up and down on her toes. Yianna, by contrast, stood perfectly still, her poise perfect, asking about the route of their journey and how long it would take. I would always wonder how this woman managed to be so perfect and yet so flawed at the same time.

At 21:37, the train for Manchester Picadilly pulled into Platform One. It wasn't due to depart until 21:43, but since there was no love lost between Yianna and myself, long goodbyes weren't exactly necessary. Marie took one glance at that threatening raincloud, and put her hand on my shoulder.

"Let's go and get seats." She said, "I don't want to spend nine hours on a train train soaking wet."

"Okay." I mumbled, my voice getting lost somewhere between the train's engine and the station's tannoy. I drew up my case's handle until it clicked, and rested my hand on it like a walking stick or a Zimmer-frame.

I nodded my head. "Yianna."

Yianna, looking down at me through lidded eyes from her five foot eleven, High Priestess to fledgling, gave me a strangely entertained gaze, maybe only for a second, and then she bowed her head courteously in return. "Anastasie."

Turning my back on her for good was not difficult for me, and she knew that. Dragging my case behind me, Philip carried it over the gap between the train and the platform for me, I stepped into the train, and began to follow them down the aisle to somewhere where we could all sit together.

I almost burst into tears – I wanted to get off the train. So badly, so badly I wanted Yianna to be gone, and Oliver to be standing in her place, calling to me from the platform, begging me not to go. I wanted to run into his arms and kiss him without a care in the world. Complete and utter emptiness engulfed me - I wanted to tell him I loved him. I bit my lip and forced myself back into reality. Oliver wasn't here, he wasn't going to be, and he never would be. And did I really expect him to be?

Dropping myself into a seat next to Marie, I clutched my handbag in my lap. I was so numb that I barely felt Marie's hand on my shoulder again. What I'd done to him was worse than I could ever possibly contemplate. I deserved him no more than I deserved this second chance. I couldn't add insult to injury by ever going back, the sheer shame would never let me anyway. Closing my eyes, and warming my hands together, I sent a prayer up to Nyx.

I prayed that She would somehow let him know how very, very deeply sorry I was.

* * *

_Spiridion_

* * *

"You knew."

Yianna knew I was behind her before I made a sound, even with the busy bustle, loud footsteps and whirring trains alive in the background. I heard the familiar beeping that signalled the closing doors, the wheels racketing against the tracks, the squeal of the brakes of a train pulling into the station. Even now, in this modern day and age I craved the steam engines of times gone by, brightly painted and polished, buffed and brassed, heavy coal tenders coupled behind them. There was something of history that had been lost with the dank, smelly platforms and the chewing gum plastered onto the seats and doors. These places were historic buildings with not very historic contents; they were rather ugly in fact. I could remember this place when it was first built, in 1845, clean, fresh, untouched by time. It was almost a sorry sight now in comparison.

I hadn't been going to come today, and even now I could see I was too late to see off Anastasie. The train was still sitting at the platform – I checked my watch, 21:39 – the train wasn't due to depart until 21:43, but as I saw Yianna standing at the platform, without either Anastasie or Marie, something inside me dropped with a painful disappointment. As I stepped up to stand side by side with Yianna, I briefly wondered if she would ever know that I had been here to say goodbye.

My hands clamped around two cups of Costa coffee, I turned to face the High Priestess, holding one cup out to her.

"Peace?"

Her eyes connected with mine, shocked by the gesture, yet happy – ever so happy – to receive it. Maybe one day I would understand Yianna a little better. Maybe, she might even understand me. Whilst I had originally gone out to hurt her, I had since realised that she was already hurting. Quietly, she accepted the cup, and we both turned to watch the unmoving train again.

"It was you, who sent the photo album."

But once Yianna had the bit between her teeth, so to speak, she did not let go until she had what she wanted. It was a determination that did her credit, but nothing for my comfort. I allowed a smug smirk to creep onto my face. And why not? What did it matter now? In fact I would consider this to be one of Yianna's slowest ever discoveries. After I had clean walked into the room during Oliver's firing, and she hadn't so much as said a word to me about it, I wondered if she would ever work it out.

In the background the tannoy sounded. _"Please stand back from the platform, the next train at Platform Two, does not stop here."_

I now had to let her explain, like a detective does at the end of a crime drama. "Oh Yianna, how did you guess?"

"Out of all the people to look at that photo album," she said, her eyes still wandering between the station clock at the train, "I was the only one to do so with fresh eyes. Everyone else was preoccupied with Oliver and Anastasie, or Bryan and Anastasia in those photos. No one else, apparently, realised that you are in the backgrounds of at least ten of them."

"Unfortunately that doesn't prove anything." I retaliated, "I knew Dragon, I admit it freely. That shouldn't be a surprise to you; we competed in the same competitions and moved in the same circles."

I had to shout the last few words, as the train roared past Platform Two behind us, the sheer power of the thing drawing the air from around us. She waited until it had passed before she replied.

"Did you know his wife?"

"It was pretty difficult not to know his wife." I said, ridiculing her suggestion, "She accompanied him everywhere. I'm surprised he didn't strap her to his back during duels."

"Believe it or not Spiridion, I did consider it being pure coincidence, what with you being a barely passable swordsman and all." I laughed, she didn't. "So guess how pleased I was with myself when I found out that you were an executor of his will."

Well I'll be damned. She had me.

By the balls.

I had to say, I was impressed. Where did she get that from?

She had already read my mind. "You'd be amazed what information Thanatos is capable of getting her hands on." She said, "She wasn't surprised either, she said she'd smelled a rat from the day she introduced Oliver Pendragon to you, aged sixteen as a new tutee, and you just stood there with wide eyes and laughed."

"I didn't laugh, it was a chuckle."

"Whatever. Either way, you were responsible for Bryan Lankford's possessions and affairs after he died. His wife had originally been his first executor, and when she died, he asked you. He, was British, I understand it?

"Yes, the Honourable Bryan Lankford. He was the Earl of Lankford's third son, all renounced at Marking of course, there's a large estate towards the Midlands, it's an English Heritage site now I believe."

"Yet he was never enrolled at either Scarborough or London."

At that I had to chuckle. "What, you mean Thanatos can dig out his will but she couldn't find out where he went to school?" I shook my head, "No, no, it was Tower Grove in St. Louis. His father threw him out."

She wrinkled her nose. "Because he was Marked?"

"No, he threw him out before that." I laughed, "He was a cocky little sod. And he was the third out of five sons, there wasn't any question of endangering the family's ownership of the estate."

"Interesting, but irrelevant." She said, "But he never acquired American citizenship, despite the fact he remained there for the rest of his life. So since a will in the UK requires two executors, I can narrow it down to two people. Yourself..." she said, "And Lenobia."

"I have no idea what you're talking about Yianna."

She took a sip of her hot coffee, the steam arising from it blown across the platform in the breeze. "You do realise you've made your point?" she said, "And you didn't need to drag me into a Hull courtroom to do it."

"Didn't I?" I said, drinking my own, "Let me put it this way Yianna: As far as I'm concerned, children should be allowed to climb trees. It teaches them not to do it when they're older, and they learn from it first-hand. That's what physical pain is. It's a deterrent from doing dangerous things. If they never feel it, they're never deterred from doing things they shouldn't. The reason we have so many problems with modern society is because we wrap them up in bubble-wrap as children and we wonder why they're testing the waters as teenagers."

"So, what do you mean, that children should just be allowed to climb trees until they fall and break something?"

"What I mean Yianna, is that rules, be they there for whatever reason, aren't always the best way of achieving that reason. Don't follow them like they're the guidelines for life. The guidelines for life..." I said, tapping the side of my head, "Are only forged from experience."

"I'm not a child Spiridion." She said, "Not anymore. I've been knocking around for long enough."

"But you've been High Priestess for only a year." I said, "And you've got some very big shoes to fill. And you think, that if you do everything to the book that you couldn't possibly go wrong. Am I right?" She didn't say anything, so I didn't push her. "All that, only works in theory. Look at Communism, works in theory but it didn't turn out too well for the Russians did it?"

She snorted. "I wouldn't know." She said, "I'm not that ancient."I raised my finger and pointed at her, just to warn her.

She smiled. "I noticed something else." She said, "Every one of the Lankfords' possessions was present and accounted for after probate was granted, except, for two nineteenth century silver wedding bands and a Topaz engagement ring." She snuck a smirk of her own my way. "He didn't name a successor for any of those items, I presume they were far too precious to sell."

"And what a good job too." I said, "But I don't have them. I don't make a habit of carrying around jewellery."

"Lenobia has them?"

I nodded. "When Dragon died, we decided that I would take care of possessions, and she would take care of affairs. She had no idea what to do with the blades and I had no idea what probate was. He had left me his priceless eighteenth century rapier, so we decided she would have custody of the rings." I gave a small grin, "Turns out we were only guardians after all."

"They must be worth a small fortune."

I smiled. "Oh, they're worth a lot more than that." I said, "And one day..." I reassured her, as my eyes followed the train that was sounding its whistle, and pulling out of Platform One, "One day, we'll send them home."


	33. Gold

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

**Me: Penultimate chapter, minus possible epilogue. Enjoy.**

* * *

_Ask him to find me an acre of land, _

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, _

_Between the salt water and the sea-strand, _

_For then he'll be a true love of mine._

* * *

_14__th__ August 2060_

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

"Good luck Oliver."

"Not that he needs it."

The sound of my own soft-soled pumps against the lightly carpeted anti-slip floor came in rhythmical thuds, not dissimilarly to the beating of my heart, and the wishes of luck shouted from my teammates, fellow fencers, our physiotherapist, sports psychologist, county coordinator, coach, and our team captain, as I made my way from the changing rooms, down the dark and narrow corridor that led to the stadium, the piste, and my fate, echoed off the walls and into my eardrums as sweet encouragement to do what I had been born to do.

Maître Benoît, a Belgian ex-champion fencer and coach, and our Chef d'Equipe, stood at the entrance to the stadium, just behind the shadow that separated this world from the one out there. He stepped into my way as I approached him, his face as least as concentrating as mine was.

"Now Oliver..." he said under his breath, as he looked over my uniform as if he were going to find a mistake in it, "Remind me of the difference, between Frenchmen and toast?"

I smiled lightly with the humour. "You can make soldiers out of toast."

"That's my boy." He said, the pride in his voice was almost painful to listen to, "Oh, and Oliver..." I turned around, "Good to have you back."

As I trod out into the light, and I heard the crowd of people, row upon row stacked high into oblivion, begin to roar and cheer, the true fighting spirit came to life inside me – I'm not going to pretend that I didn't enjoy the attention, but I definitely did not enjoy the drowning sensation that came with it. It wasn't nerves, it wasn't fear, and I still couldn't put my finger on it as I stepped up onto the piste and put my mask on while the assistants connected me up to the electronics that would score our hits. Subconsciously, my left hand dipped into my pocket and turned over a small box with my fingers.

How on Earth had a teacher with a death wish and an engagement ring in his pocket, ever managed to get here?

The ring was sent to me about two years ago now, and I had carried around with me like a good-luck charm ever since. As fencers, we weren't supposed to have anything in our pockets, anything that could stick out and give a point away when otherwise had it not been there you would have been safe, but I still had it with me, in my left trouser pocket, and the box really was miniscule. I couldn't even see it when I stood up straight.

The package had been sent via recorded delivery and was covered in so much tape I had to use a knife to get into it – I remembered wondering what that was so important could possibly fit into such a small box. Pulling off layer after layer of tape, I finally got down to the box itself, untucked the flap on the end, and let the contents slide out onto the table before me. Rings? These were tiny ring boxes, made from black leather, and held shut by small gold catches. Two boxes were a matched pair, one was slightly smaller. Opening each one in turn, the ones in the identical boxes were silver wedding rings, the other was silver, engraved with Celtic patterns and had a low-set topaz stone. Like the letter had prompted, I picked each one up and looked at the inside rim. Sure enough, there was a bluebird, a coat of arms, and a date: 7th April 1834. Inside the cardboard box, there was a little folded up piece of paper. Picking it out, I had unfolded it and smoothed out the creases.

_Dear Dragon, or Oliver, whatever it is you're going by these days,_

_I think it's time I sent these back to you – you never dictated a destination for them and they were clearly far too treasured to sell, so I kept them safe, now I see why. In case you don't remember, engraved on the inner rims is the Missouri bluebird, the Lankford family coat of arms, and the date you exchanged them. Don't screw it up this time, in my experience; second chances like these are rarer than rocking horse poo and not to be wasted. _

_Your friend,_

_Lenobia. _

I most certainly had not forgotten the person that I had just come two hundred miles closer to.

I think Lenobia had expected me to go looking for Anastasie as soon as she Changed. I knew our Imprint hadn't budged, and that I would definitely know if she had rejected the Change, so I had come to the conclusion that she was out there somewhere. But I had never gone looking for her. Because the truth of it was that I was still terrified of her. But God I missed her. And the prospect of finding her gain thrilled me as much as it frightened me.

For about the last three years, I had begun to take my own training more seriously again. I had been the Swordmaster of Vampyres aged nineteen, at the 2148 Vamp Olympics, but beyond that point I had never actually defended my title, in 2152 I was in my third year of university and abroad so that was out of the question, and in 2156 I had graduated, and a team definite, until my graduation, when I found out my parents had been killed. Since then I hadn't so much as been entered in any competition, let alone an international one. I had trouble keeping myself awake and standing, never mind fence well. I knew that to no practice my affinity could be soul-destroying, but it was at the bottom of my top five soul-destroying experiences at that point. I couldn't do it all and the sport would have to wait.

I had been able to pay Spiridion to stay on as my nanny, he wasn't even too disgruntled about it, and when we did have a spare moment, the odd match never went amiss. Foil, épée, sabre, anything. I rediscovered old muscles that I hadn't used in years, and with the fitness came a whole new level of reaction – Spiridion said that was the edge on my sword, so to speak – I could strike at twice the speed of any other fencer, accuracy was no problem, anticipation was easy. The ease with which it came back to me was relaxing, and empowering. It was like the release of endorphins you get from exercise – it felt good to do it. And, I never lost. I hadn't once lost a match, not since I started fencing aged seven.

And now, I had a shot at 2060.

My opponent? Swordmaster of Vampyres, Antoine Dubois of France. He was well over six feet tall, a giant in comparison to me, and a redhead to top it off, but I knew everything about his style and technique well before I stepped out here. His bladework was foot-perfect. Too bad that his footwork wasn't. The sheer length of his limbs gave him some impressive lunges and he had a habit of slightly over-extending, but despite that, he was one of the fastest fencers I had ever seen. I had beaten countless other fencers to get to where I am now. Team Gold was in the bag. Now it was the Individuals. The pool was easy, I had been seeded number one and so had been given a bye and then only had to fence the top sixteen. The quarter- and semi-finals were challenging but not overly so, but I had no doubt that Antoine would give me a run for my money.

Bryan Lankford had been Swordmaster of Vampyres from the time he was nineteen until the end of his life, successfully defending his title every single Games. Not one fencer could score a match off him. And he was back. _I_ was back. I took my position on the piste, and waited for those all-familiar words.

"Positions. Play."

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

I really shouldn't be here. I was out of my mind to be here. I didn't have a ticket, or a pass, but a small amount of spellwork had seen me past the security guards easily. So now not only was I really not supposed to be here, I had technically broken and entered, and now I was wondering my way around a huge building like a lost puppy.

God what was I doing?

My heart jumped like it hadn't done in a long time. All I wanted, was to see him again.

That was all. I didn't want to speak to him, or meet him, I just wanted to see him. I wanted to see him up on the top position of that podium, as he so deserved to be, I wanted to see him achieve his dream. That would be enough for me. On the ground floor entrance to the stands, I was able to see the match before me. The security guard was sitting with his back to me, watching the match intently, so I just stood a few feet behind him, and I saw him.

It had been such a long time – three years. Three slow and painful years. So I had passed school, Changed, I had considered going to university, but with my affinity, there seemed very little point. I was a priestess of the art now, but I was still learning. So I was still with the House of Night in London, as a teaching assistant to the S&R professor Silviya, and taking on my own projects. But apart from that, if you asked me if I thought I'd changed at all, over these three years, I would say no. I was twenty-one, but the world seemed no different to when I was eighteen.

Oliver hadn't changed. He was every bit as handsome and talented as he had been then. Every bit as wonderful. He could parry anything, he was brilliantly deceptive with bladework, his reflexes were quicker than those of any other. I hadn't fenced since Seconds, I was familiar with the terminology, at best, but nothing more. I didn't think that even the most experienced maître would have been able to fault him. The concentrating look on his face before he put the mask on alone could tell me how much this meant to him. I had never seen anyone move with that kind of grace, or speed or precision. I could feel the exhilaration that he felt through that Imprint that just wouldn't die. It filled me to the brim and made me want to beam, and jump up and down for joy when he made the first hit, a wonderful riposte after a quinte. The buzzer sounded, and they resumed their positions. Oliver needed five points, or to have more points at three minutes, whichever came first, to win the match. The other fencer was almost as good, and did indeed score off Oliver, but not enough, Oliver would push him back and back and back until his feet were on the hash markings that told the fencer when they only had two metres of piste left, it seemed to rattle the Frenchman's form, and Oliver would score again. When the three minutes was up, a buzzer sounded and the crowd cheered. I looked up at the electronic scoreboard - Oliver had scored three hits, and the opponent only one.

I wanted to shout, I wanted him to know I was here...

But I couldn't. He mustn't know I'm here. He won't want to see me anyway. Not after what I did to him. I wiped a single tear from my left eye, and wondered if he could feel me like I could feel him. I still loved him, I had never stopped, I had never got over it, or moved on. But he must never know. If he did, I'd never shake this. Never.

The crowd was screaming as both of them removed their masks and shook hands, and Oliver closed his eyes and grinned like a huge wave of relief had washed over him. Suddenly, a team of assistants started assembling a podium and a flock of media and press delegates swarmed out of nowhere...

And he was looking at me...

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

I made the hit, the clock buzzed, and the press swarmed.

Pulling my mask from my face, I wiped the sweat away and immediately approached Antoine and shook his hand and patted him on the arm, as was polite and expected. The world exploded. I had done it! _I_, had, done it! The sheer excitement and success was overpowering, and I loved it! We were both pulled to one side towards the media, which was foaming at the mouth to get footage of us. Before I could object, a French TV station appeared out of nowhere, and a smart brunette presenter had thrust a camera and microphone in my face. I tried desperately to remember the last time this had happened to me, and quickly rejogged my French, as I saw they weren't asking the questions in English. Who was I kidding? They'd encountered me before. And there was me hoping they would forget I spoke French.

"Alor, bon soir Oliver, nouveau Maître d'Éscrime des Vampires, quel combat fantastique pour finir ces Jeux Olympiques, il faudrait que vous soyez extrêmement fiers!" _Well good evening Oliver, new Swordmaster of Vampyres, what a fantastic match to finish these Olympic Games, you must be extremely proud!"_

She pointed the microphone at me, and I wet my lip to speak. "Oui pour moi c'est un honneur immense de revenir après toutes ces années, et d'avoir quel adversaire formidable comme…" _"Yes it's an immense honour for me to return after all these years, and to have such a formidable opponent such as..."_

Suddenly, my words stopped coming. The reporter looked a little concerned for me, as did everyone else, but I couldn't bring myself to move. As I stood with that group of photographers, journalists and officials, waiting to jump on me like a pack of dogs and hang a medal around my neck, a glimmer of gold caught my eye. She was hiding, just behind the shadows of the entrance to the stands, in the flesh, as beautiful as she ever was. Ours eyes met across the stadium, and my heart stopped. She startled, and suddenly looked like she was about to cry, and turned on her heel, running away down one of the side halls. I didn't pause to make a choice.

"Wait..." I found myself saying, and Antoine Dubois glared at me through his shocking blue eyes in confusion.

"Quoi?"

"Pas vous..." I said, before speaking back to the microphone "Il faut que, je m'en aille..." "_I have to go..._" and with that, I sprinted from the middle of the piste.

"Où courez-vous?" _Where are you running off to? _He said.

"J'sais pas!" I don't know, I shouted back, as I pushed through the body of bodies, ran off the stage and straight down into the corridor I'd seen her emerge from, leaving the press with their jaws dropped. The air tore through my lungs as I went, as I followed the route out towards the exit. The automatic doors at the entrance couldn't open fast enough when I reached them, and as soon as my feet hit concrete, I looked either way frantically, desperate for another glimpse of her golden blonde hair. I cursed under my breath, and clenched my fists.

"Sir?" I said to one of the security guards on the door, "Excuse me sir, you didn't see a young small blonde vamp pass by here did you? In a blue shrug?"

The two huge bouncers peered over their sunglasses at one another for a moment. "You proposin' or something?"

My eyes reverted to the side and when I looked straight forward again, they widened with my answer, along with my half-dropping jaw. "Actually I might be."

Grimacing a little, as if I had let the side down, he pointed to his left. "Thank you so much. Thank you!" I yelled over my shoulder as I sprinted in the direction of the London Docklands. Oh God I had no idea which direction she's gone in. I desperately hoped they hadn't thought I was a psycho stalker and sent me in the wrong direction. I must have looked ridiculous, colour was starting to fill my cheeks with the temperature I was generating inside my uniform – Jesus these things are hot!

I carried on running for the next half hour; before I finally let my feet drop back to a walk, and gave up. If she didn't want to see me, she didn't want to see me. I briefly wondered if Antoine would win by default if I had dropped off the face of the planet, but honestly, while I cared, I cared more about her. My fingers once again returned to my pocket and fumbled with that ring box, as I allowed myself to get my breath back. I kicked violently at the asphalt below my feet, I had lost her again.

Damn it!

I was going to have to try harder.


	34. Completion

_**Scarborough Fair**_

* * *

**Me: I apologise in advance for the fluff. **

* * *

_When he has done and finished his work,_

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,_

_Ask him to come for his cambric shirt,_

_For then he'll be a true love of mine._

* * *

_Anastasie_

* * *

Let me tell you how these things end.

They tend to end, exactly at the point where you begin.

I had Changed on a cold winter's evening, weeks after we had returned for the spring term in 2158. The temperature was well below freezing, and I had actually been in an Equestrian Studies lesson. It was well below freezing at this point, but Philippa, the ES professor, always went ahead with practicals regardless, so I was wearing five layers beneath my thick coat, a scarf around my neck, two pairs of tights underneath my jodhpurs and at least four pairs of socks inside my riding boots. The horse had a blanket over its quarters, held in place by the saddle, and thick bandages on, and Philippa still wouldn't let us halt, we had to keep them moving, otherwise we would all get cold. We could see our breath fogging before our faces, the lights of the indoor manège were bright yellow, and the corrugated iron creaked as the wind battered it mercilessly. I remember, we were learning to ride half-pass, a dressage lateral movement which involved travers on a diagonal. This was a high-level movement, but I was lucky enough to be in the top set, where Philippa pushed us the hardest. And if you didn't learn when Philippa told you to learn, you were in trouble. I remembered her answering a question someone had asked, about whether or not to wear a body protector for a flatwork lesson. Philippa had laughed, "I make my beginners class wear them." She had said, "Because I like to hit them when they don't sit properly. But the other sets don't need them." The woman was a legend in boots. Anyway, I remember Philippa's voice echoing off the walls of the school, telling me to sharpen my inside leg and half-halt on the corner, before performing the half-pass. I shifted my right leg back slightly and tweaked on my left rein, supporting the horse with the right one. I was doing it, and Philippa wasn't criticising. I felt smugly happy.

Only a few steps away from the track, my stomach sickened. A sharp, blinding pain spread across my forehead, my eyes blurred and suddenly I couldn't see anything. I screamed with the pain, and my horse took fright, and leapt to one side, completely dislodging me, and I went out the side door, hitting the soft surface with a thud. I lay on the ground for a moment, completely and utterly winded, while Philippa called for the horse to be caught and ran to my side. People were asking if I was alright but I barely heard them. My sight and vision cleared just as Philippa dropped onto her haunches beside me.

"What was all that about then?" she said, and then I pulled off my riding hat, and she could see. Her eyes widened and she smiled at me. "Congratulations."

I pressed my fingers to my forehead in several different places. "Have I...?"

She nodded. "Yep." And inside, I did a little jump for joy. "Now..." she said, "Don't you _ever,_ scream like that from on top of a horse again."

I remembered grinning, because a wall, a huge, impossible wall that sat between me and him, had just crumbled into dust. However, the wall that I had put between us, was one that I would have to climb by myself. If I ever decided I was worthy to climb it, which would not be any time soon. I couldn't stand to see his broken expression, his beautiful sad brown eyes set on me. The person who least deserved them. So I had run.

I had run all the way to the Canary Wharf tube station, only pausing to buy a ticket. I headed north on the Jubilee Line, changed onto the Hammersmith & City Line east at West Ham, and got off at Barbican.

The London House of Night, or London Charterhouse, as it was officially named, was one of the most beautiful old places I had ever been in. Originally a Carthusian priory in the middle ages, it had been rebuilt several times, once as a house, then an almshouse, and then a school – the school moved sites in 1872, and still exists somewhere else, and that was when the House of Night officially moved in. It was every bit an ancient old mansion, made out of grey stone and insides made of finely polished wood. And there were windows! In Scarborough, windows were rare and it was one of the most claustrophobic places I had ever been, whereas this was all open and airy. It was the house that Queen Elizabeth I had stayed in in preparation for her coronation, and had other grandeurs to its name. My last year of school here had been the most enjoyable school year of my life. I had made friends, I had fitted in, I had achieved everything I had wanted from my education. But, I had always missed Oliver Pendragon. I briefly wondered if I was the biggest idiot on the planet, I knew he had run after me, but why? To ask me how Yianna found out maybe? Maybe he wanted to see me as badly as I wanted to see him. As I thought back to my own Change and everything that had happened since then, I realised that I had no idea how or when Oliver Changed, I didn't know what his favourite colour was, what his favourite food was, or if he was a beer man or a cider man. I didn't have a bloody clue. How much else didn't I know about that I felt I should?

The evening after all that at the Docklands, I stepped downstairs to relieve the day cover shift in one of the girls' houses. The House of Night were happy to have me working there, but as ever, as a member of staff I had to cover the dorm office for the ones whose parents didn't want them back in the summer. And as a member of staff I was living on site anyway, it made very little difference to me. Some of the girls liked just coming in for a chat, sitting on the old sofa, maybe doing homework at the same time, and talking. I think a lot of them got lonely in here in the holidays. There was no guarantee that any of the others staying would be people who were friends, or people they even knew. I found great solace in talking to them. They had all the troubles of a normal teenage life, something that I had not had, but the more I listened to them the more I got the impression that I wouldn't have wanted it. I think sometimes I hoped they would listen to me as much as they hoped I would listen to them.

The door to the office of Hesperides House was open, as always. Giulietta, the friendly professor of Vamp Sociology looked up from the desk when she heard me enter and smiled. "Thank Nyx." She said, "It's about time." She packed up all of her things and logged off the computer, "I'm off for wine and takeaway."

"Have a good night Giulietta." I said, as I sat myself down at the computer and logged on.

Whilst standing at the door, I hadn't been able to see the sofa. Now I could, and more precisely, who was sitting on it, I understood why Giulietta was so keen to get away. I stood up and locked the door.

"Oliver..." I murmured, as he stood up silently and pulled me into his arms. His touch was thrilling; it rekindled everything into white-hot, passionate flames. It melted me down, and I finally admitted to myself how indescribably happy I was that he had come looking for me. My Oliver, sweet gentle wonderful Oliver, was here, holding me so tightly I thought I was going to suffocate. At that point I wouldn't have cared. "How did you find out I was here?" I wriggled a little, "Oliver..."

"Please..." he whimpered, not letting me go, "Wait... Please, please..."

I stopped struggling, and eventually, he let me loose enough to look at my face. "What the Hell were you doing?" he asked me, cupping my face like it would draw the truth out of me, "Why did you run?"

A tear fell down my cheek. "I wasn't going to come... And then I, I, just had to see you on that podium where you so deserve to be and now I've ruined it for you like I ruined everything for you..."

Ssh, ssh..." he held me close again, "You did no such thing!"

"You lost your job and Lord knows what else because of me!" I cried, and he wiped my tears away with his fingers.

"Yianna gave me my job back..." he said, "I didn't lose anything. Except you."

"You're an idiot." I sobbed, "You should have been on that podium instead of chasing me!"

"I don't care!" he said firmly, his entire body shaking, "I don't care! All I care about... Is you. Anastasie, winning you is infinitely more than winning gold."

I was afraid that he would push me away and take back everything he said, the weight of emotion was crushing me. I returned his embrace, his entire body relaxed in my arms, and I watched in a childlike awe as he leant towards me and kissed me deeply. I pushed my hands under his arms, feeling for the muscle beneath his shirt, up and raked my fingers through his hair as we both struggled for air. I tightened my grip around him as much as I could, I couldn't let him go, I couldn't have any more space between his body and mine than was absolutely necessary. He planted kisses on my neck, and for a moment I thought he was going to drink from me, but he didn't, every time his mouth left mine he left me panting, sometimes we would stop and press our faces against one another's, eyes closed in some kind of sexual stupor before launching into another downpour of passionate kisses. This was good, it was so good, I completely melted into his arms, and there was no one to stop us, no one to tell us it was wrong.

At that moment, I didn't care what we had been, what we had started out as, because it was evident now, that we had become something else. It wasn't our fault, we had had the purest most honourable intentions in the world, both of us, and we couldn't stop it from happening. I didn't care that I hadn't yet Changed, I didn't care that he had been my teacher, my tutor, our souls were mated. I loved him. He was the same person now as he had been as my husband well over a century ago. My husband... My skin tingled with possessiveness, he was mine.

"I'm sorry..." I told him when we paused for breath, suddenly feeling plagued with guilt once again, "My dragon I'm so, so sorry..."

"Whatever for?" he said,

"I caused you so much pain..." I said, "When I held you to your oath." He tried to hush me and lull me again, but I had to say this. I should have said this a _long _time ago, "I tried to hold you to those words, but they're not what's holding us together. They're not what ever held us together in the first place."

"This might be."

Silently, he dipped his hand into his pocket and pressed something into my hand, curling my fingers around it to make sure I didn't drop it.

* * *

_Oliver_

* * *

Let me tell you how these things end.

Well, the truth is that they never really do.

I couldn't describe the look on her face as she gazed down at that ring. Elated? Confused? I simply couldn't put my finger on it. Usually I could read her like a book, even after all this time and even then after the relatively short time we'd known each other. Studying her, that face I knew so well, I got lost. Her Mark was stunning, small flowers on vines that framed her eyes, so intricate they could have been real.

"Oh, wait..." I said, snapping myself out of my enamoured trance, stepping back from her, and then lowering myself onto my one knee before her, "This is the way it's done isn't it? Better?" she burst out laughing, but it only lasted a few seconds, like a sombre undertone was sobering her. "I understand if you're not ready..." I said, "I would _never_ ask unless..."

"Unless all this crazy stuff was true." She finished my sentence for me, and once again I was captivated by the beauty of her face. Placing her hands lightly on my arms, she encouraged me to stand, I could barely breathe. Where she touched me my muscles tightened and writhed in a way that was oddly pleasurable. This time, she walked willingly into my embrace, and once more I felt her warm, living, breathing body against mine and I sent Nyx all the gratitude I had in me. I must have been the luckiest man alive.

"_Bryan..."_ she whispered deep into my ear, her lips brushing my skin in a way that made me freeze, _"My love... Thank you for coming for me..."_

I held onto her so tightly I'm surprised I didn't squeeze the oxygen out of her. "_You never could keep me away_." I whispered back, "_Anastasia_."

Suddenly, she pulled away from me, another puzzled expression on her face. "Wait..." she said, looking around the room for something akin to awe, "What's the date today?"

"15th August." I said, "Why?"

And then she smiled, a bright, wonderful smile that shone light into my soul. "The day Scarborough Fair began."

"And lived forever in the song." I said, as I tilted my head down to kiss her neck gently, working my way up to her ear, "Each verse an impossible task set for a couple by each other, saying that only when the other completes them, will they be their true love."

Anastasie began to hum the tune under her breath. "_And when he has done and finished his work, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, ask him to come for his cambric shirt, for then he'll be, a true love of mine_."

I kissed her mouth with as much passion as I could muster. I had fulfilled all of the impossible tasks. Carrying on without my parents, helping Anastasie, mourning Ellie, falling in love with Anastasie as my pupil, and then surviving the consequences. Damn it I had earned her back, I was sure. What more could I do?

Once again, she broke away and I kissed her neck. "Ask me properly." She muttered into my ear, her breath hot on my skin.

"_Only if you can forgive yourself_..." I asked her, as she resisted my attempts to kiss her again.

Her face was so tantalisingly close to mine that it made me ache, but still she wouldn't quite let my lips touch hers. "Can _you_ forgive yourself?" she whispered to me.

Gingerly, I nodded my head, and she smiled. "Then ask me properly..." she repeated.

"Marry me...?" came my begged, breathless reply, demanded rather than requested. With that, she closed the gap between us again.

And then, I think, both of us, had our answers.

_Are you going to Scarborough Fair?_

_Remember me to one who lives there,_

_Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,_

_Without no seam nor fine needlework,_

_Tell her to wash it in yonder dry well,_

_Which never sprung water nor rain ever fell,_

_Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn,_

_Which never bore blossom since Adam was born,_

_Ask her to do me this courtesy,_

_And ask for a like favour from me,_

_Have you been to Scarborough Fair?_

_Remember me from one who lives there,_

_Ask him to find me an acre of land,_

_Between the salt water and the sea-strand,_

_Ask him to plough it with a sheep's horn,_

_And sow it all over with one peppercorn,_

_Ask him to reap it with a sickle of leather,_

_And gather it up with a rope made of heather,_

_When he has done and finished his work,_

_Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,_

_Ask him to come for his cambric shirt,_

_For then he'll be a true love of mine._


	35. Notice

**_Scarborough Fair_**

* * *

**Hi all, sorry this isn't the epilogue, I'm really quite stuck for a really good idea for an epilogue so thought I'd leave it for a bit so as not to spoil the ending. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you there's a video on YouTube for this story/couple, it's called "I am not my own; for I have been made new - Dragon & Anastasia", my YouTube username is the same as my ffdotnet username. So check it out, it's seriously cool.**

**While I'm here can I give a great big thank you to every one who has reviewed and supported me through this story - I think it's my best yet, thatnks guys for all your inspiration!**

**And if anyone has an idea for an epilogue then let me know. I was going to have Lucy close, as she's the only character whose story I haven't finished telling yet, I have a kind of draft version but it's not really good enough an ending for this fic :/ What do you think? **


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